The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found that Russia violated elements of a U.N. anti-terrorism treaty, but declined to rule on allegations brought by Kyiv that Moscow was responsible for the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
The court also found that Russia breached an anti-discrimination treaty by failing to support Ukrainian language education in Crimea after its 2014 annexation of the peninsula. The decisions were a legal setback for Kyiv, who had filed a lawsuit at the ICJ in 2017 accusing Russia of violating an anti-terrorism treaty by funding pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
The 16-judge panel ordered Russia to investigate any plausible allegations of terrorism financing but turned down a request by Kyiv for reparations. The court declined to rule on the downing of MH17, saying violations of funding terrorism only applied to monetary and financial support, not to supplying weapons or training as alleged by Ukraine.
Ukraine had argued that Russia supplied the missile system that shot down the aircraft, but it had not alleged financial support in that instance.
In a hearing at the Hague last June, Russia dismissed Ukraine’s allegations that it funded and controlled pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as fiction and “blatant lies.” The court’s judgments are final and without appeal, but it has no way to enforce its rulings. On Friday, the ICJ will rule in another case in which Ukraine has accused Moscow of falsely applying the 1948 Genocide Convention to justify its Feb. 24, 2022, invasion.
(Reuters)
