UN court to rule on whether Russia violated global treaty in Ukraine

The court’s decision is final and cannot be appealed, but its judgment cannot be enforced. (document)

The Hague:

The United Nations’ top court will rule on Wednesday on whether Russia’s funding of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, including those who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014, violated anti-terrorism treaties.

Kiev says Russia has also violated human rights treaties by discriminating against Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea. Crimea is a peninsula that Russia announced it was annexing from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine is asking the International Court of Justice to find that Russia violated its obligations under two United Nations treaties signed by the two countries and order it to pay compensation.

At a hearing in The Hague court last June, Russia dismissed Ukraine’s accusations as fiction and “blatant lies.”

Moscow’s lawyers deny systematic human rights abuses in the Ukrainian territory it occupies and reject accusations that it violated a U.N. treaty to combat the financing of terrorism.

In 2017, before Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Kiev took Russia to the United Nations Supreme Court.

The case lasted nearly seven years and Russia was accused of providing equipment and funding to pro-Russian forces, including the rebels who shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

In November 2022, a Dutch court sentenced two Russians and a Ukrainian to life imprisonment in absentia for their role in the disaster.

In Crimea, Ukraine says Russia is trying to eliminate the culture of Tatars and Ukrainians.

The court’s decision is final and cannot be appealed, but its judgment cannot be enforced.

However, a ruling that finds Russia responsible for funding pro-Russian militants in Ukraine could fuel separate cases against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights and the International Civil Aviation Organization.

On Friday, the International Court of Justice will rule on a separate case in which Ukraine accuses Moscow of wrongly applying the 1948 Genocide Convention to justify its February 24, 2022 invasion.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)