This article discusses definitions of crimes included into the Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, and their usefulness in prosecuting individuals who committed international crimes. It is argued that the provisions of the Act cannot constitute a ground for criminal responsibility of individuals, as they violate the principle of nullum crimen sine lege certa.

The aim of this article is to assess the military operation started on 24 February 2022 by Russia against Ukraine in light of the law on use of force, having in mind all the justifications officially expressed by Russian authorities and in light of international humanitarian law. The author claims that there is no justification for the Russian military action and thus it must be qualified as aggression. This, due to the serious violation of the peremptory norm, implies obligations on the part of states and international organizations (i.e. the international community). In addition, the current conduct of hostilities clearly shows that it is mainly Russian forces which neglect international humanitarian law principles, which might amount to war crimes.

This article seeks to answer the question of how international criminal law (ICL), the 1971 Montreal Convention, and international humanitarian law (IHL) influenced the proceedings in the MH-17 case, with particular emphasis on the Dutch Prosecutors’ line of reasoning in proceedings before the District Court in The Hague (DCiTH), as well as on the judgments that the DCiTH delivered on 17 November 2022. Notably, the analysis below aims to establish whether, by refusing to grant combatant status to the defendants, the District Court acted within the limits permissible under international law, even though this Court admitted that at the moment of the MH-17’s downing, the nature of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine was an international, not a non-international, one. In conclusion, the article argues that, firstly, even though the DCiTH’s interpretation of the IHL is not free of certain flaws, the Court’s line of reasoning and the sentences it delivered are a pragmatic attempt to bridge the gap between the proper administration of justice and the efficiency of criminal proceedings in a case where an airplane downing takes place during an international armed conflict. Secondly, although most recently the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) took note of the MH-17 judgments, for the reasons explained in this article the scope of their potential impact on the further development of international and domestic jurisprudence is uncertain, and remains to be seen.