Ukraine, Netherlands Await Pivotal Rulings in Cases Against Russia from Previous Years of War

As Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine grinds toward the one-year mark, a collection of legal cases that date to the original invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014 are making their way through various courts. After a Dutch district court last month issued life sentences in absentia to three commanders of Russian-backed forces found guilty of downing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, and murdering all 298 people on board, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) will deliver its early-stage judgment later this month in three joined applications by Ukraine and The Netherlands against Russia.

The ruling, scheduled to be issued Jan. 25, relates to admissibility (Articles 34 and 35 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the ECHR) and Russia’s extraterritorial jurisdiction over eastern Ukraine (Article 1 of the Convention). All three of the applications, which the court combined, concern human rights violations by Russia in eastern Ukraine, and therefore require a determination of whether Russia can be held accountable for human rights violations beyond its own territorial borders, in its neighboring state Ukraine. This, therefore, requires a detailed assessment by the ECtHR on what the precise role of Russia was back in 2014 in eastern Ukraine.