Michaela Mazzeo

It’s my last week of my summer as a research assistant as USIP!

This week, I help get the ball rolling on a potential future event discussing the crime of gender persecution in Afghanistan.

This week, I focused more on USIP’s atrocity prevention and human rights documentation work in Afghanistan and attended a public event on atrocity prevention in Sudan.

This week, I gained an understanding of the challenges Ukraine faces in its fight against entrenched judicial corruption, the reintegration of de-occupied territories, and ensuring fair trials to alleged war criminals and collaborators.

I got to writing my research memo on judicial reconstruction in conflict/post-conflict settings, with an eye towards challenges and needs specific to the Ukraine-context.

Social cohesion in Ukraine will be necessary to secure internal peace. This week, I got a look into Ukraine's ongoing efforts to build it now and the challenges it will face in the future.

This week, I learned about ongoing initiatives and ideas for how best to secure peace in Ukraine once the war comes to an end, and just how Ukraine's vision for peace will include Russian accountability for its crimes.

My research on post-conflict judicial reconstruction is coming together and I learn more about the international scope of efforts to hold Russia accountable for its atrocity crimes in Ukraine, no matter the final outcome of the conflict.

I learn that to create a justice sector capable of providing accountability for mass atrocity crimes is a decades-long, multinational initiative. But it's one Ukraine and the dozens of countries that support it are resolved to achieve for Ukraine.

This week, I finally started my work as a Research Assistant at United States Institute of Peace!