PRESS RELEASE: NGOs file landmark complaint to UN Human Rights Committee on Russian aggression in Ukraine
PRESS RELEASE
NGOs file landmark complaint to UN Human Rights Committee on Russian aggression in Ukraine
Geneva, 10 July 2024
The Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), Legal Action Worldwide (LAW), and Truth Hounds filed a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) today on behalf of 18 Ukrainian victims of a Russian missile attack which killed 29 people and injured over 200.
The joint complaint argues that Russia violated the right to life of all those killed as a result of an attack on the city of Vinnytsia on July 14, 2022, conducted as part of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. At the time of the attack, Vinnytsia was more than 380 kilometers from the frontline. Russia struck the commercial center of Vinnytsia with three Kalibr missiles, which are high-precision guided weapons. Russia claimed that the attack targeted a high-level military meeting held at one of the buildings struck by the missiles, but most people killed and injured by the strike were civilians.
Such attacks against densely populated urban areas have been a consistent feature of Russia’s full-scale invasion since it began in February 2022. Yet, given the limitations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) and international criminal law, some of these attacks may be hard to prove as war crimes, even when they result in massive civilian casualties.
“This innovative case was developed over two years of investigation and legal analysis,” said Anya Neistat, Legal Director of CFJ’s The Docket initiative. “If our arguments are accepted by the Human Rights Committee, the complaint will set a worldwide precedent, advance accountability for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and offer a measure of justice to the families of all those killed in aggressive war.”
The UN Human Rights Committee receives complaints from people who claim that a state has violated the rights enumerated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee shares certain features with courts. Where the HRC finds a violation, its decisions reaffirm the state’s obligations to provide effective remedies which can include compensation.
“Nothing will bring our loved ones back,” said 40-year-old Yaroslav, whose wife was killed and seven-year-old son severely injured by the strike. “But we are determined to do everything we can to bring justice to them, and countless others, who are still being killed in Ukraine every day.”
The joint complaint calls on the Human Rights Committee to bring justice for the families of the victims of the Vinnytsia attack by determining that Russia’s actions during this unlawful attack violated the victims’ right to life and ordering the payment of reparations to the families.
“A favorable decision from the Committee will mean that the victims of the attack are no longer just ‘collateral damage’ of military action,” said Roman Avramenko, Executive Director of Truth Hounds. “It will recognize that their rights have been violated and that they are entitled to redress. The UN Human Rights Committee should not miss this opportunity to take action based on its own principles”
The field and open-source investigation carried out by CFJ and its partners into the circumstances of the strike, as well as an extensive legal analysis supported by expert opinions from leading scholars, conclude that the Vinnytsia attack violates the right to life of both civilians and military personnel in accordance with the HRC’s General Comment 36, which states that any killings arising from an act of aggression—as defined by international law—constitute a violation of the victims’ right to life under the Covenant.
This submission to the HRC is the latest step in CFJ’s efforts to hold Russia accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine. In October 2023, The Docket filed three cases with German federal prosecutors, one of them jointly with Truth Hounds, requesting an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine. In June 2024, The Docket filed another case of behalf of victims of sexual violence in Austria.
For more information about this case, the Vinnytsia attack, and the HRC’s mandate, click here.
For more about The Docket’s work in Ukraine, click here.
For b-roll material that can be credited to HiddenLightOffice/Channel 4 and field photos taken by the Docket team in Vinnytsia, click here.
About the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s Docket Initiative:
The Docket triggers prosecutions against perpetrators of war crimes and mass atrocities, and represents survivors in their pursuit of justice. The Docket seeks to hold abusers of human rights accountable to survivors, victims, and their families. Its work takes place in conflict zones and courtrooms. The Docket gathers evidence of international crimes and uses that evidence to trigger official investigations and prosecutions by international, regional, or national courts. The Docket represents and supports survivors, witnesses, and victims’ families in court, helping them tell their stories and seek legal accountability.
About Legal Action Worldwide:
LAW takes a survivor centered, gender sensitive approach to creative legal strategies in order to improve access to justice and provide legal redress to the most vulnerable in conflict-affected and fragile regions.
At LAW we work towards equality of all before the law and to deliver access to justice to those who need it most – victims and survivors of human rights violations and abuses in conflict-affected and fragile environments. We use creative lawyering, combining national and international expertise with a deep understanding of survivor and victim needs and wishes, to provide recognition of the violation suffered to the victim, to bring attention to the situation and to break the cycle of impunity and recurrence.
About Truth Hounds:
Ukrainian non-governmental organization (NGO) Truth Hounds has been documenting and investigating war crimes and human rights abuses in Ukraine and other countries since 2014. Its mission is to find the truth, prosecute those responsible for war crimes, and share expertise in the field of international humanitarian law.
For more about Truth Hounds click here.