The International Court of Justice has announced a ruling in the case of Russia's violation of two conventions - on the financing of terrorism and on the prohibition of all forms of racial discrimination. The court partially upheld Ukraine's claim, but rejected most of its accusations. UNN reports this with reference to the BBC.
Thus, the court rejected most of Ukraine's claims of terrorist financing. It statedthat the case could only concern Russia's alleged support for terrorism through finance, not weapons that could be used to carry out terrorist attacks.
The Hague court also stated that it did not have sufficient evidence to decide whether the groups that Ukraine calls terrorist are indeed so.
At the same time, the court ruled that Russia had failed to conduct the necessary investigation into the accusations of terrorist involvement of representatives of the self-proclaimed "DPR" and "LPR" made by Ukraine, and thus violated the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.
This is the only point in this part of the charges brought by Ukraine that the court upheld.
At the same time, the UN court refused to order compensation to Ukraine, as Kyiv insisted.
Regarding the second group of charges about the situation in Crimea, the court ruled that the actions of Russian law enforcement agencies against Crimean Tatars may have partially violated the rights of this ethnic group.
However, with regard to the allegations of racial discrimination, the court stated that it was not convinced that Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea were persecuted on the basis of their ethnic origin. It believes that the actions against them could have been politically motivated.
In addition, the court interpreted the persecution of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people as a political action, not one based on the ethnic origin of its leaders. Therefore, it does not believe that the ban on the Mejlis violates the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The court stated that Ukraine failed to convince it that Russia violated the rights of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars on the basis of their nationality. At the same time, according to the court, Russia is guilty of violating the rights of ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea, as the number of students studying in the Ukrainian language has plummeted since the annexation of the peninsula.
The court refused to award any compensation to Ukraine.
Addendum
On January 16, 2017 , Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Russia in the International Court of Justice for violation of the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the Convention on the Prohibition of Racial Discrimination.
The charges against Russia include:
- providing weapons and other types of assistance to illegal armed groups;
- the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17;
- shelling of residential areas of Mariupol and Kramatorsk;
- destruction of a civilian passenger bus near Volnovakha;
- an explosion during a peaceful assembly in Kharkiv;
- discrimination against the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar communities;
- ban on the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people;
- waves of disappearances, murders, unauthorized searches, and detentions;
- restrictions on the teaching of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages.