Australia and the Netherlands have filed a joint lawsuit against Russia in the case of Malaysia Airlines MH17, which crashed in Ukraine and killed 298 people in 2014.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the lawsuit had been submitted to the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on Monday (14/3).
Morrison stressed that the Red Bear Country is responsible under international law because hundreds of people were killed by Russian missile fire in Ukrainian territory controlled by pro-Moscow separatists.
Meanwhile, the Dutch Foreign Minister, Wopke Hoekstra, confirmed that his country had indeed filed a lawsuit with Australia.
"The deaths of 298 civilians, including 196 Dutch people, cannot and should not be left without consequences. The current situation in Ukraine underscores the importance of this step," Hoekstra said, as reported by Reuters.
Through this lawsuit, Australia is seeking full compensation from Russia for the victims of the MH17 incident. They also demanded the revocation of Russia's voting rights at ICAO for standard-setting civil aviation.
Although it has no legal force, ICAO's decisions regarding aviation have so far been a reference for the global aviation safety system.
Australian and British legal action this time was taken based on an article in the ICAO Chicago Convention which is designed to protect civilian aircraft from gunfire.
The article was added to the convention in 1984, after the shooting down of a South Korean plane by Soviet troops the year before.
Australia and the Netherlands say they base their lawsuit on evidence that MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made missile over territory controlled by pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine.
After that, the surface-to-air missile system also returned to Russia, confirming the suspicion that the attack was indeed masterminded by the Red Bear Country.
So far, Russia has denied these allegations. They offered various other possible theories that caused MH17 to crash, without providing concrete evidence.
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