The International Court of Justice in The Hague Partially Upholds Ukraine's Lawsuit Against Russia

The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled on Wednesday that Russia has violated international treaties on combating terrorism and racial discrimination, the UN official website reports. However, the court rejected most of the charges brought by Ukraine against Russia in connection with its invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

This lawsuit was the first precedent for the UN court to deal with accusations of terrorist support by an individual state.

The case does not concern violations by Russia after the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, but focuses on events in Donbas and Crimea since 2014.

Even before the announcement of the court's decision, this event was called "historic" in Ukraine.

Lana Zerkal, who was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and once represented Ukraine's delegation in the Hague, said:

"The judgement in this case will be the first legal response of the civilised world to Russia's grandiose disregard for international law and the International Court of Justice in particular."

In its lawsuit, Ukraine accused Russia of violating two international conventions.

Firstly, the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. Russia was accused of providing "weapons and other types of assistance to illegal armed groups that have committed a number of acts of terrorism on the territory of Ukraine".

The MFA explained that this, in particular, led to the downing of flight MH17 and the shelling of residential areas in Mariupol and Kramatorsk.

Secondly, Russia was accused of violating another UN convention, the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. This concerns "non-Russian communities" in the occupied Crimea, in particular "ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars".

Ukraine cited the 2014 "referendum" in Crimea, the ban on the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, pressure on the media, and restrictions on teaching in Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar as evidence of this.

Ukraine asked the International Court of Justice, in particular, to oblige Russia to

- immediately withdraw all support to "armed groups that commit acts of terrorism in Ukraine";

- take measures to remove all weapons previously provided to these groups;

- initiate criminal prosecution of those involved in "financing terrorism": in this context, Sergei Shoigu, Vladimir Zhirinovsky (now deceased), Sergei Mironov and Gennady Zyuganov were mentioned;

- fully compensate for the damage caused by the MH17 crash, as well as "all other terrorist acts" in which Kyiv accuses Moscow of involvement.

Russia has denied human rights violations in Crimea and any involvement in the war in Donbas, both in the form of supporting the militants with money and weapons and in the form of its troops.

At the trial, the Russian representative stated that the shelling of civilians in Donbas took place on both sides of the contact line and was not terrorism.

However, the Russian side later challenged the very right to consider Ukraine's claim in the UN court.

In September 2018, the Russian side told the court that it did not have jurisdiction to consider the dispute over Ukraine's claim.

Russian representatives pointed out that the Ukrainian side had misinterpreted the concept of terrorism in its statement of claim, and that there was no evidence of Russia's involvement in the events mentioned in the claim.

As for the Crimean part of the claim, Russia's representatives argued that Ukraine's main goal was not to discuss issues of racial discrimination in Crimea, but to challenge the very status of the peninsula.

However, the International Court of Justice did recognise its jurisdiction over the claim. Ukraine then called it its great victory.