Judgment and Justice: The ECHR’s Ruling on Russian Human Rights Violations in Ukraine

On July 9, 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered a landmark judgment finding Russia accountable for widespread and flagrant abuses of human rights during the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine since 2014, including support for pro-Russian armed groups in Donetsk and Luhansk, the downing of Flight MH17 in July 2014, and the subsequent full-scale invasion in February 2022. This ruling comes against the backdrop of approximately 9,300 individual and three inter-state applications currently pending before the ECHR related to the Russo-Ukraine War.

Although Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in March 2022 and ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights in September 2022, the Court continues to adjudicate violations that occurred prior to that date. The panel will explore the judgment’s legal significance and its implications for the ongoing war and prospects for accountability.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies.

Speakers

Ioannis Ktistakis is a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (2021-) and president of its Third Section (2024-). Prior to that, he was an associate professor of public international law at the Faculty of Law, Democritus University of Thrace [Komotini-Greece], assistant professor at the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, Boğaziçi University [Istanbul-Turkey], and visiting professor at The George Washington University Law School. He has over 61 publications on issues related to public international law, immigration law, environmental law and religious freedom.

Brian Taylor
Director, Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

Brian Taylor is a professor of political science and the director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He is the author of four books on Russian politics: Russian Politics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2024); The Code of Putinism (Oxford University Press, 2018); State Building in Putin’s Russia: Policing and Coercion After Communism (Cambridge University Press, 2011); and Politics and the Russian Army: Civil-Military Relations,1689-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Moderator