Geneva, 16 May, 2025.- Those responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which killed 283 passengers and 15 crew members in July 2014 over eastern Ukraine must be brought to justice, UN experts said today, after a landmark decision by the council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
“Those responsible for this heinous crime remain at large and must be brought to justice without any further delay,” the experts said.
On Monday, 12 May, the ICAO agreed in law and in fact with claims brought by Australia and the Netherlands regarding the shooting down of Flight MH17 and decided that the Russian Federation breached its obligations to “refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight.”
The decision was a first for the ICAO on the merits of a dispute between Member States under the Organization’s dispute settlement mechanism.
“The killings of the passengers and members of crew of the MH17, on 17 July 2014, over Eastern Ukraine, is tantamount to an arbitrary deprivation of life, and in view of the armed conflict at the time may also amount to a war crime,” the experts said.
The Special Rapporteurs recalled that under both international human rights and humanitarian law, States have a duty to investigate, prosecute, and punish all violations of the right to life, and provide reparations to families of victims.
The experts hailed the comprehensive forensic investigation conducted by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the MH17 Joint Investigation Team (JIT). The investigations provided conclusive evidence that the plane was shot down with a Buk 9M38 surface-to-air missile originating from the Fifty-Third Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation, fired from rebel-controlled territory.
They also welcomed the use of universal jurisdiction by a Dutch court, which in November 2022 charged two Russian officials and a member of the armed groups of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ for murdering all 298 people on board flight MH17 and sentenced them in absentia to life imprisonment. The Dutch court also ruled that the ‘separatist forces’ fighting at the time in eastern Ukraine were under control of the Russian Federation.
«All States, including the Russian Federation, must fulfil their international obligations to effectively search for, locate, and arrest those responsible, and ensure they are brought to justice,» the experts said.
“The failure to do so is a grave affront to the victims and their families and sets a dangerous precedent of impunity for an intolerable international crime,” they said.