Untangling the significance of the Ukraine and the Netherlands vs Russia Case on the determination of the international nature of the conflict and on the onset of the use of force by the Russian Federation against Ukraine: 2022 OR 2014?

Abstract

This article will draw from the ECtHR’s judgement of 30/11/2022, without offering a direct commentary on that decision. My aim is to build upon the Court’s stance and analyse it in the context of the international framework of the use of force. I believe it gives rise to a prolific discussion on jus ad bellum, which allows, by resorting to case-law and relevant documents and scholar’s legal theories, to question whether the violation of the prohibitive principle of the use of force in international relations only occurred when Putin authorized a “special military operation” in 2022, or if it goes back to 2014. I am going to endorse this latter viewpoint, but not before putting in prominence the Court’s assessment on the ECHR’s extraterritorial application and whether it allows to link the Russian Federation to the “separatists’” warlike acts, imparting an international nature to an apparently internal armed conflict.