THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — In a ruling that was mostly a win for Russia, the U.N.’s top court found on Wednesday that Moscow partially breached two international treaties since it began occupying parts of Ukraine in 2014.
The International Court of Justice ruled that the Russian Federation failed to properly investigate claims of terrorism financing and violated a discrimination convention, but rejected the majority of Kyiv’s claims.
"The situation in Ukraine is very different today than it was when Ukraine filed its application," the court's president, Joan Donoghue, said at the start of the reading.
Ukraine argued that Moscow violated both the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, or ICSFT, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, abbreviated as CERD, calling the country a “terrorist state” during hearings in June 2023.
Ukraine first filed suit against Russia in 2017, three years after Russia took over a number of border regions. After a week of hearings, judges ruled in 2019 that the court had jurisdiction to take the dispute.
The Ukrainian delegation expressed disappointment at the limited nature of the ruling but still maintained it was a win. “For us, it is a really important day because this is a judgment which says that the Russian Federation violated international law,” Ukraine’s agent, Anton Korynevych, told reporters after the hearing.
It is the first time an international court has ruled on the 1999 terrorism convention and the 16-judge panel found a very narrow definition of what qualifies as financing. “The ICSFT … does not include the means used to commit acts of terrorism, including weapons or training camps,” the judges said in the 117-page judgement.
Ukraine had asked the court to find Russia culpable for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over Eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board. But the court declined to weigh in, as the assertion from Ukraine was that Russia supplied the weapon used to bring down the plane.
Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in the tragedy, but a Dutch court concluded in 2022 the surface-to-air missile used to bring down the aircraft originated with the Russian army, and the European Court of Human Rights ruled in January 2023 that Russia had control of the region.
Hearings into the merits of the case in 2023 saw Russia rehashing debunked conspiracy theories about the downing of Flight MH17, claiming Ukraine itself had shot down the passenger airliner.
Ukraine also argued that Russia violated 1965's CERD by mistreating non-Russians in Crimea, including the Tartars, a Turkic-speaking people indigenous to the region. That treaty requires signatories to take steps to end racial discrimination and promote understanding between different nationalities, races and ethnic groups.
The court was unpersuaded by most of Ukraine’s evidence that there was a pattern of discrimination, only faulting Russia for failing to offer enough Ukrainian-language opportunities in the education system.
The treaty has its own committee to adjudicate complaints, but countries can also bring legal action before the International Court of Justice. The court has seen only five cases relating to the CERD, all in the last 15 years. Georgia brought the first case to the court in 2008 against Russia over the Russo-Georgian War, which the court ultimately ruled inadmissible.
The court also said it lacked jurisdiction in a dispute between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in 2021.
A pair of cases stemming from the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, a 1,700-square-mile area that technically falls within the borders of Azerbaijan but is overwhelmingly ethnically Armenia, are ongoing. Both countries have accused the other of violating the treaty and a ruling on jurisdiction is expected in 2024.
On Friday, the Court of Justice will rule on jurisdiction in another case brought by Ukraine against Russia. Days after the February invasion, Kyiv accused Russia of violating the Genocide Convention by using a false accusation of genocide as a pretext for war.
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