Ukraine’s Case Against Russia Nears Verdict at European Court of Human Rights

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will deliver its verdict in the case of “Ukraine v.Russia (re Crimea)” on Tuesday, June 25, 2024.

The announcement of the judgment will take place during public hearings at the Human Rights Palace in Strasbourg, with the hearing starting at 11:00 am, the court’s press service said on Tuesday, June 18.

The case of “Ukraine v. Russia” is based on three applications that Ukraine lodged with the ECHR in 2014, 2015 and 2018. Kyiv accuses Russia of gross human rights violations in occupied Crimea. According to the Ukrainian authorities' position, Russia is responsible for violating a number of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to life, the prohibition of inhuman treatment and torture, the right to liberty and security, to a fair trial, to freedom of religion, to education and freedom of movement.

Kyiv alleges that since 2014, there have been systemic human rights violations in Crimea, which are committed and covered up by the occupation authorities. Since the situation in occupied Сrimea is controlled by Moscow, Russia must bear responsibility for gross violations of the rights of independent journalists, activists, representatives of the Crimean Tatar community and Ukrainians who openly expressed their protest against the Russian occupation of Crimea, Ukrainian representatives in court said.

In December 2020, the ECHR declared the case admissible and confirmed that Russia has been exercising effective control over the territory of the peninsula since February 27, 2014.

Hearings in the case were held twice — on September 11, 2019 and December 13, 2023. At the last hearings in December last year, representatives of the Ukrainian authorities were present, while Russia as the respondent country did not send its representatives to the hearings in this case.

Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe (CoE) due to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. On September 16 of the same year, it officially ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights.