Oksana Bidnenko is a staff correspondent for JURIST. She is a Ukrainian law student at the Riga Graduate School of Law in Riga, Latvia, and is currently an exchange student at the University of Oslo, Norway.
It was announced last week that Ukraine and other members of the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 are filing a lawsuit against Iran at the UN-associated International Court of Justice for the downing of the UIA plane in 2020 which claimed the lives of all 176 people on board.
The International Coordination Group, comprising representatives from Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, and Great Britain, highlighted the absence of an agreement with Iran for organizing arbitration under Article 14 of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation. Article 14 permits arbitration if negotiations fail to reach an agreement, and if within six months the parties are unable to agree on the organization of the arbitration, one of the parties may refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice
The joint statement by the International Coordination and Response Group for the Victims of Flight PS752, posted on the website of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs states:
“We, the members of the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752, express our concern over the failure to reach an agreement on the organization of arbitration between Iran and the Coordination Group, as stipulated by Article 14 of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation.”
The UIA Boeing-737 crashed on January 8, 2020, shortly after departing from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. The tragedy claimed the lives of 167 passengers and 9 crew members, including nationals from various countries. Initially, Iranian authorities denied responsibility for three days but later acknowledged that the plane was mistakenly shot down by its anti-aircraft forces.
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