Every day in the occupied territories, Russia abducts Ukrainians and holds them captive. Some of them are serving life sentences on trumped-up charges.
In July 2023, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said that approximately 25,000 Ukrainian civilians could be held in Russian captivity.
According to the Representative Office of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as of 19 November, Russia is holding at least 218 residents of the peninsula.
Of these, 132 are Crimean Tatars. Forty-three are arrested (28 of them Crimean Tatars), 151 are imprisoned (97 Crimean Tatars), and 26 are without status (6 Crimean Tatars).
The first interstate complaint to the European Court of Human Rights against the Russian Federation concerned the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
What was the subject of Ukraine’s claim?
In March 2014, Ukraine first filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights regarding Russia’s violation of
Ukraine filed its first complaint in this case with the ECHR on 13 March 2014, three weeks after Russia began seizing the peninsula.
Additional applications were filed in August 2015 and 2018. In this interstate case, the Government of Ukraine asked the ECtHR to find Russia responsible for violations of human rights guaranteed by the Convention.
The Government of Ukraine filed a claim under Article 33 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The claim was for a violation of such rights and freedoms:
The course of events
On 11 September 2019, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights began hearings in Ukraine v. Russia regarding human rights violations in Crimea.
At the time, Marharyta Sokorenko stated that the case contained terabytes of information on human rights violations in the Russian-annexed Crimea.
It had been collected for years by representatives of state bodies, human rights activists, and others.
‘Our goal is to prove that in the occupied territories, there are not just some individual cases of human rights violations. But that this is a targeted policy of the Russian Federation in the occupied territory against those people who do not support Russia, its policy in the occupied territories,’ Sokorenko said to Qirim.Aqiqat.
On 4 January 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) agreed to consider Ukraine’s lawsuit against Russia over the occupation of Crimea, recognizing its jurisdiction.
The Court had previously found that Russia had been in control of the peninsula since 27 February 2014, earlier than Russia had officially claimed.
This decision can be considered a confirmation of the actual occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.
In addition, the ECHR found systematic human rights violations by the Russian Federation in the occupied territory. The violations include enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, harassment of religious organizations, discrimination against Crimean Tatars, restrictions on freedom of speech, etc.
On 13 December 2023, the Court began consideration of the case on the merits.
‘This is a violation of human rights, a violation of clear norms defined in the European Convention on Human Rights. Thus, in some cases, compensation may be awarded to the victims of the violation,’ Oleksandr Pavlichenko, Chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, said to Suspilne.
On 25 June 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced a decision on the merits of the first interstate case against Russia, finding it guilty of systematic human rights violations on the occupied peninsula.
The court unanimously recognized numerous violations by the Russian Federation. These included disappearances, illegal detentions, ill-treatment, the inability to renounce Russian citizenship, the suppression of the work of Ukrainian media and the functioning of the Ukrainian language in schools, and transfers from Crimea to remote Russian prisons.
ECHR stated that it had sufficient evidence, including reports from intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, witness statements, and other materials, that the incidents were sufficiently numerous and interconnected to be recognized as systemic.
In addition, the court’s decision states that since 2022 (as of 25 June 2024), at least 12,500 Crimean prisoners have “apparently been transferred to penitentiary institutions located on Russian territory”.
‘This judgment is the first in which an international court of law has found the Russian Federation responsible for a policy of systematic violations of various human rights in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea,’ wrote ECHR Commissioner for Affairs Marharyta Sokorenko.
What is happening now?
Since 2022, the Russian Federation has ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and has stated that it will not comply with the judgments of the ECHR issued by the court after 15 March 2022.
“The European Court of Human Rights remains competent to deal with applications against Russia concerning actions or omissions occurring up until 16 September 2022. 17,450 applications against Russia are currently pending before the Court,” the European Council said in a statement.
As an argument, the Russian authorities claimed that the decisions were allegedly politicized and that the Russian judicial system satisfied all the needs of its citizens.
At the same time, the ECHR mechanisms continue to be used when they benefit Russia. For example, the occupation authorities of Crimean museums filed a complaint against the return of Scythian gold from the Netherlands to Kyiv, not to the occupied peninsula.
As Marharyta Sokorenko said, this is not the first time Ukrainians have seen such tactics from Russia, so they are ready for it.
In February 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear a case concerning Russia’s interpretation of the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide. More information about the case is available here.