Deborah Housen-Couriel, Asaf Lubin
On July 9, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) unanimously found in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia that the Russian Federation was responsible for a broad array of human rights violations committed over more than eight years of armed conflict, beginning with the occupation of parts of Ukraine in 2014 and culminating in the full-scale invasion launched in February 2022.
In communicating the judgment to the public, Court Registrar Marialena Tsirli characterized it as “one of the most consequential judgments in the Court’s history.” Still, the decision comes at a moment when the court’s jurisdiction over Russia has been sharply curtailed. Following its expulsion from the Council of Europe in March 2022, Russia ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Accordingly, the court’s jurisdiction extends only to acts attributable to Russia occurring on or before Sept. 16, 2022—which marks six months from that expulsion in line with ECHR Article 58—even as the war continues with undiminished intensity. Russia, for its part, formally ceased to recognize the court’s authority in June 2022, and has since refused to cooperate with its proceedings. Accordingly, the Russian government has summarily rejected the present judgment, with President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson declaring it “null and void.” The decision’s immediate and practical effect on the ground, therefore, remains limited.
Still, this ECtHR ruling offers much more than just “symbolic” victory. Out of the ECHR’s 46 parties, 26 intervened as third parties in this case, a development that the judgment notes is without precedent and reflects the intervenors’ “perception of the importance of this case to the Convention system as a whole.” Moreover, the final ruling is a landmark not only in moral terms. Throughout its nearly 500 pages and 1,652 paragraphs, the unanimous judgment provides an important analysis of the application of international human rights law (IHRL) during war, setting doctrinal trajectories that will reverberate for decades to come.
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