Webinar: Ukraine and The Netherlands v. Russia, the European Court of Human Rights Judgment

On Monday 29 September 2025, we hosted an online panel discussion on the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Ukraine and The Netherlands v.Russia.

Our expert panel – Judge Mykola Gnatovskyy, Professor Marko Milanovic, Nadia Volkova and Chair Jessica Gavron – considered the extraordinary task that faced the European Court of Human Rights in this group of cases, how it dealt with the issue of jurisdiction, its approach to International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and what this judgment means for Ukraine and Ukrainians.

The Grand Chamber joined four inter-state cases, one from The Netherlands concerning the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17, and three from Ukraine focusing on Russian atrocities in Ukraine from its invasion of Crimea in 2014 up to and including the full-scale invasion in 2022.

English recording:

Recording with Ukrainian translation:

Our panel:

Dr Mykola Gnatovskyy has been a Judge of the European Court of Human Rights since June 2022. Before this, he was a member of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture from 2009 to 2021, serving as its President for three terms (2015-2021).

For over two decades, Dr Gnatovskyy has taught international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and human rights law at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He holds an LL.M. and Ph.D. in International Law and is the 1st Vice-President of the Ukrainian Association of International Law.

‘The Grand Chamber’s judgment in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia establishes the first legally authoritative human rights chronicle of the ongoing war.’

Judge Gnatovskyy

Marko Milanovic is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Reading School of Law and Director of the Global Law at Reading (GLAR) research group, as well as the Raoul Wallenberg Visiting Chair of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, University of Lund. Professor Milanovic is the Special Adviser on Cyber-Enabled Crimes to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. He is also co-editor of EJIL: Talk!, the blog of the European Journal of International Law, as well as a member of the EJIL’s Executive Board. He is an Academic Expert at Doughty Street Chambers.

This was an extraordinary judgment, demonstrating that human rights law can effectively be applied in armed conflict. But the Court also left many important issues open, which will be litigated and hotly disputed in the future.’

Professor Marko Milanovic

Nadia Volkova is a lawyer practicing in Ukraine and specialising in international humanitarian and international criminal law. She was educated and has extensive legal and advocacy work experience in the UK (having been called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2009), France and the US. She returned to Ukraine just before the Revolution of Dignity, which was followed by the illegal annexation of Crimea and the break-out of the armed hostilities in eastern Ukraine. In 2015, she started working in one of Ukraine’s largest NGO’s on cases of grave human rights violations in eastern Ukraine. In 2018, she founded the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group (ULAG).

ULAG’s work has had a narrower focus on monitoring, analysing and continuously assessing the legal landscape in Ukraine through the prism of the international standards of due process. ULAG’s lawyers litigate strategic cases at the national and international courts and tribunals. They also advocate for the legislative and institutional changes in order to ensure accountability for grave crimes committed in the territory of Ukraine since 2014. ULAG is a member of Ukraine 5am Coalition.

In 2022, Nadia was a recipient of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) Human Rights Award for her outstanding commitment in to human rights and the rule of law in Ukraine and internationally.

‘This was a judgement a lot of Ukrainians had been looking forward to because they had been promised justice for all the pain and suffering caused by the Russian state. While Russia’s expulsion from the Council of Europe was a politically correct step, it has led to a reality where for the individual applicants to be able to claim compensation will be incrementally difficult. We need to think of a solution for enforcing individual judgments that will follow the

Nadia Volkova

Event Chair: Jessica Gavron is Co-Director and Head of Legal at the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC)