The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) passed a decision in the international case “Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia”, having recognized numerous violations of human rights during the war by the Russian Federation.
The President of the ECtHR, Matthias Guillaume, noted that in the case of the downing of flight MH17, a violation of Articles 2 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights was established. The Court also unanimously recognized that the moral suffering of the relatives of those killed in the MH17 disaster fell under Article 3 of the Convention, which prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment.
Among other statements, the court found violations of a number of rights guaranteed by the Convention, including the right to life, prohibition of torture, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of conscience and others (Articles 2-5, 8-11, 13 and 14).
The case covers four complaints related to events in eastern Ukraine related to the activities of pro-Russian armed groups, starting in 2014. It includes the tragedy of flight MH17, as well as the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
It will be recalled that on July 17, 2014, a passenger Boeing-777 of the Malaysia Airlines company, operating flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over the occupied territory of the Donetsk region. All 298 people on board died.
On November 17, 2022, a court in The Hague found Russian militant Igor Girkin (Strelkov), GRU general Serhiy Dubinsky, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko guilty of shooting down the plane. All of them received life sentences and must pay 16 million euros in compensation to the relatives of the victims.
