The International Court of Justice (ICJ) of the United Nations will dispose of the case on the crash of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 no earlier than 2023, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Enin has said.
“As for the hearings in the International Court of Justice, we are seeing attempts by the Russian Federation to delay the transition of the International Court of Justice to the consideration of the issue on the merits, referring to the restrictions connected with COVID-19, the difficulty of forming its legal position. At the same time, as of today, we have a preliminary schedule of all procedures at the International Court of Justice of the United Nations, which should be completed with a final decision at least by the end of 2023,” Enin said on the air of the Ukraine 24 television channel on Monday.
He noted that it is necessary to clearly distinguish three separate tracks within the framework of which the investigation of this tragedy takes place.
“The first is the criminal and legal block, this is the court of The Hague, which is now holding hearings on the progress of the additional investigation and the continuation of which was postponed until April this year. The second area, within which the Russian Federation is prosecuted as a state, in particular under the Convention on the fight against the financing of terrorism, there is the Ukrainian lawsuit against the Russian Federation in the International Court of Justice. And the third area is a collective complaint of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the state of Ukraine against Russia in the ECHR,” Enin said.
According to the deputy minister, all of them are aimed at bringing to justice Russia, its military-political leadership, and specific perpetrators of this crime.
