The Netherlands and Australia announced that they will initiate legal action regarding the incident in which Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down as a result of fire opened by pro-Russian separatist groups in the east of the country in 2014 while passing over Ukraine and 298 people lost their lives.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated that according to international law, Russia is responsible for the incident and that they will take the incident to the United Nations (UN) International Civil Aviation Organization to fight for the victims. On 17 July 2014, 38 Australian citizens lost their lives in the incident that occurred during the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur expedition.
The Dutch government also stated that they informed the UN Security Council about their initiatives and said, “The deaths of 298 civilians, including 196 Dutch, cannot and should not be inconclusive. The events taking place in Ukraine underline the vital importance of this.”
Australia and the Netherlands state that they will use the evidence that the Boeing 777 type aircraft with flight number MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made ground-launched air defense system missile taken from Russia to the east of Ukraine.
Moscow, on the other hand, rejected the allegations that it was involved in the incident and produced a series of alternative theories, but these theories were not accepted by the international investigation team due to lack of evidence.
In a statement on Monday, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne reminded that both countries are holding negotiations with Russia in good faith, but Russia unilaterally withdrew from the talks in 2020. The Netherlands also stated that they wanted to bring Russia back to the negotiating table last year, but underlined that they did not ignore the possibility of legal action.
What is expected from the legal initiative?
Australia expects Russia to pay full compensation for this damage, and also seeks suspension of voting rights in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which sets Russia’s civil aviation rules.
Although ICAO, headquartered in Montreal, Canada, does not have the regulatory power, it acts beyond political borders and forms the basis of the global civil aviation security system.
A clause added to the Chicago Convention of ICAO, the procedure established for the protection of civilians on aircraft from gunfire is very rarely used. The said article was added in 1984 after a South Korean plane was shot down by Russian fighters the previous year.
Experts state that the outcome of this initiative of the Netherlands and Australia before ICAO is uncertain, but they evaluate that the move can be seen as one of the ways to force Russia to negotiate on the incident.
In past events, official negotiations at ICAO were seen as a step forward before a lawsuit was filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Iran sued the United States of America, which shot down Iranian Airlines Flight 655 in 1988, at the ICC.
This initiative before the UN was taken as a different step from the murder case in the Netherlands, where four suspects were tried under individual criminal responsibility. The case, which is pending in the absence of three Russians and one Ukrainian in the Netherlands, is expected to be correctly pronounced by the end of this year.