Victory for Ukraine as ECHR delivers damning judgement against Russia over systematic violations in occupied Crimea

The European Court of Human Rights has issued its judgement in the first of several inter-state cases brought by Ukraine against Russia, with the Court finding Russia guilty of multiple human rights violations since its invasion and occupation of Crimea.  Most importantly, the Grand Chamber in its 25 June judgement, agreed with Ukraine that these violations are of a systematic nature.  It is also telling that all parts of the judgement were passed unanimously by the 17 judges of the Grand Chamber.

Unsurprisingly, Russia has already stated that it “does not plan to comply” with the judgement.  Russia’s only argument in all cases brought before international courts has been to deny the specific court’s jurisdiction.  Russia’s attempt to claim that the Court lacked jurisdiction in the Case of Ukraine v. Russia (re Crimea) was dismissed by the Grand Chamber on 14 January 2021.  In a crucial rejection of Russia’s false narrative about a ‘referendum’, etc., the Court found Russia had exerted effective control over Crimea from 27 February 2014, the day Russian soldiers without insignia seized control.

Six months after that ruling, Russia attempted to bring its own inter-state case against Ukraine back in July 2021, with its application dismissed by the Court exactly two years later.

Its position now is based on the spurious claim that the Court has no jurisdiction because Russia withdrew from the European Convention on Human Rights (and ECHR) in 2022 after being effectively thrown out of the Council of Europe because of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  The argument is entirely invalid since the case in question covered violations since Russia’s invasion of Crimea.  Russia tried to unilaterally claim that it had left ECHR in March 2022, however the Court’s decision unequivocally indicated jurisdiction until 16 September 2022. Jurisdiction from 2014 on is equally clear.

Margaryta Sokurenko, Ukraine’s Representative on ECHR Matters, reported that “this is the first judgement where an international court has found the Russian Federation responsible for a policy of wide-scale and systematic violations of a range of human rights and freedoms in occupied Crimea and Sevastopol.”.  She also pointed out that this was the first time in ECHR practice that it had established certain violations of the European Convention.  As examples, she cited Russia’s illegal application of its legislation on occupied territory; illegal ‘courts’; enforced change of citizenship.  This is of particular importance since Russia is committing all of the same violations in any part of Ukraine that falls under its occupation.  She calls the judgement “an important stage and result on the path to holding the aggressor state to international legal liability.”

Ukraine had, from the outset, sought to demonstrate that these were not individual or isolated violations, but were of a systematic nature.  It succeeded with the Court concluding that “it had sufficient evidence <>  to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that the incidents had been sufficiently numerous and interconnected to amount to a pattern or system of violations. Moreover, the apparent lack of an effective investigation into the incidents and/or the general application of the measures to all people concerned, among other things, proved that such practices had been officially tolerated by the Russian authorities.”

Russia had violated international humanitarian law (IHL) through its application of Russian legislation in occupied Crimea. In view of this, the Court “found that Russia had extended the application of its law to Crimea in breach of the Convention

Lastly, it found that there had been a pattern of retaliatory prosecution and misuse of criminal law and a general crackdown on political opposition to Russian policies in Crimea, which had been developed and publicly promoted by prominent representatives of the Russian authorities.”

The list of Russia’s violations of the European Convention is almost exhaustive, with the only violation of fundamental rights and freedoms that Russia was not found guilty of, being under Article 4, the prohibition of slavery and forced labour.  The types of violations which Russia was found to have committed have been reported here for over ten years and include enforced disappearances; killings (including through horrific torture); the failure to investigate such crimes; political and religious persecution, including for civic or human rights activism, support for Ukraine, etc;  infringements of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, as well as grave violations of the right to a fair trial, with torture also standardly applied, especially to extract ‘confessions’.  Crimean Tatars have been especially targeted, and form a disproportionate percentage of the number of victims of enforced disappearances and of political prisoners.  Any Ukrainians openly expressing their support for Ukraine and / or opposition to Russian occupation have also come under attack.

The Court also “held unanimously under Article 46 (binding force and implementation of judgments), that Russia had to take measures as soon as possible for the safe return of the relevant prisoners transferred from Crimea to penal facilities located on the territory of the Russian Federation.

This judgement, while hugely important, took frustratingly long to achieve.  There is probably no reason to believe that Russia would have complied with any part of it had the judgement been passed before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and withdrawal from the Convention.  It has, after all, been openly violating the Geneva Convention by applying its legislation on occupied territory since 2014.  It has also been flouting an ECHR judgement about not holding political prisoners thousands of kilometres from their home since 2017, and another on Russia’s shocking use of anonymous witnesses since 2020.  It does, however, seem likely that the Kremlin felt emboldened by the lack of any really serious consequences to its invasion of Crime and Donbas in 2014, and by the incredibly slow movement on any legal proceedings.  Even if Russia tries to ignore it, the judgement should be compulsory reading for all those political leaders and political hopefuls who would put pressure on Ukraine to agree to Russian annexation in exchange for supposed peace.  The ECHR judgement made public on 25 June is all about occupied Crimea, however Russia’s violation, and the Court’s verdict apply equally to all parts of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation.  Russia’s reaction to a damning judgement makes it clear that the violations will end when Russia is forced from Ukrainian territory.