Professor Brian Dooley

 

On Sunday, October 6, 2024, Human Rights Defender (HRD) Tigran Galustyan was driving to rescue civilians from Ukraine’s eastern front near Pokrovsk when he was targeted and killed by a Russian military First Person View (FPV) drone.

As with many other HRDs killed in Ukraine, international safeguards designed to protect him failed to save his life.  International mechanisms to hold his killers to account could also fail him in death.

In his latest report for Human Rights First, Honorary Professor Brian Dooley presents a case study of the targeted killing of one HRD.  It aims to highlight the work of Galustyan and his colleagues, provide an account of the circumstances of his death, outline the safeguards that failed to protect him, and suggest possible avenues for accountability for his killing.  It is based on research conducted on Ukraine’s eastern front in December 2024 and includes eyewitness testimony, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), media reports, and interviews with volunteers who worked with Galustyan.  It also includes analysis of relevant international law and accountability mechanisms.

Queen’s University LLM students, supervised by Institute Fellow: Rights and Social Justice, Dr Conall Mallory, contributed to the research for this report, working in teams to analyse the OSINT evidence on when and where and how he was killed; present relevant international law; and suggest possible avenues of accountability.

Read the report here.

 

Professor Brian Dooley

Brian Dooley is an Honorary Professor of Practice at the Mitchell Institute and a Senior Advisor at Human Rights First, a US-based NGO.  He specialises in working with Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) in conflict and post-conflict contexts, and was senior advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on HRDs, Mary Lawlor, from 2020 to 2023.  His most recent work has been in the Hong Kong revolution and on Russia’s war on Ukraine.  He has also written two books related to the conflict in Northern Ireland, including a comparative study of the civil rights movements in the US and Northern Ireland.