The European Court of Human Rights strikes out of the list an Inter-State case brought by Russia against Ukraine

21-07-2023

Sofía Medina Sánchez 

International Justice and Human Rights Researcher 

Global Human Rights Defence 

The past 18th of July, the European Court of Human Rights struck out of its list of cases the case of Russia v. Ukraine (application no. 36958/21). The case pertained to the Russian Government's accusation of a recurring pattern in Ukraine since 2014, which allegedly involved killings, abductions, forced displacement, interference with the right to vote, language restrictions, and attacks on Russian embassies and consulates. Furthermore, they raised concerns about the cessation of water supply to Crimea through the North Crimean Canal after April 2014 and accused Ukraine of being accountable for the deaths of those on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July 2014, attributing it to the failure to close its airspace.

The Russian Government lodged complaints of violations of various articles, including Article 2 (right to life), Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), Article 5 (right to liberty and security), Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life), Article 10 (freedom of expression), Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions of rights), Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (right to education), Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections), and Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 (general prohibition of discrimination).

The court inferred from the Russian Government’s repeated failure to reply to the court’s correspondence, that they no longer wanted to continue with their application. Additionally, the ECtHR found no reason to continue examining this inter-State case on grounds of respect for human rights given that there are around 8,500 individual applications still ongoing concerning the same events. 

Sources and further Reading: 

Press Release, issued by the Registrar of the Court, ECHR 232 (2023) 18.07.2023: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press#{%22itemid%22:[%22003-7706301-10639634%22]}

Press Release, issued by the Registrar of the Court, ECHR 240 (2021) 23.07.2021: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press#{%22itemid%22:[%22003-7085775-9583164%22]}