Europe’s top human rights court delivered two rulings against Russia Wednesday, stating in the primary ruling that Russia violated international law throughout the conflict in Ukraine, the primary time a world court has found Moscow answerable for human rights abuses because the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The court also ruled Russia was behind the downing of Flight MH17, the primary time Moscow was named by a world court as being answerable for the 2014 tragedy that claimed 298 lives.
Judges on the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg are ruling on 4 cases brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands against Russia, encompassing a wide selection of alleged human rights violations throughout the full-scale invasion because the start of the war, including the downing of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and kidnapping Ukrainian children.
Any decision shall be largely symbolic. The complaints were brought before the court’s governing body expelled Moscow in 2022, following the full-scale invasion.
Families of the victims of the MH17 disaster see the choice as a very important milestone of their 11-year quest for justice.
“It’s an actual step in understanding who was really responsible,” Thomas Schansman, who lost his 18-year-old son Quinn within the tragedy, told The Associated Press.
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The Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014, using a Russian-made Buk missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by separatist rebels. All 298 passengers and crew were killed, including 196 Dutch residents.
In May, the U.N.’s aviation agency found Russia answerable for the disaster.
The ECHR is a very important a part of the Council of Europe, which is the continent’s foremost human rights institution. Russia was expelled from the council over Moscow’s invasion and war in Ukraine. Nonetheless, the court can still cope with cases against Russia dating from before its expulsion.
In 2023, the judges sided with Ukraine and the Netherlands in a challenge over jurisdiction, finding there was sufficient evidence to point out areas in eastern Ukraine controlled by separatist rebels were “under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation,” including providing weapons, and giving political and economic support.
Wednesday’s rulings won’t be the last from the EHCR coping with the war. Kyiv has other cases pending against Russia and there are nearly 10,000 cases brought by individuals against the Kremlin.
The choices in Strasbourg are separate from a criminal prosecution within the Netherlands through which two Russians and a Ukrainian rebel were convicted in absentia of multiple murders for his or her roles within the downing of Flight MH17.
In 2022, the United Nations’ top court ordered Russia to stop military operations in Ukraine while a case is heard, a process that takes years. Russia has flouted the order by the International Court of Justice.
Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy formally approved plans to establish a brand new international court to prosecute senior Russian officials for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Schansman, who has also brought a person case to the ECHR, has no plans to stop pursuing justice, greater than a decade after his son’s death. “The worst thing we could to is stop fighting,” he told the AP. “MH17 will not be a case that can disappear for Russia.”
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