Canada, Ukraine, Sweden and the United Kingdom, united in a coalition for the victims of the 2020 Ukrainian plane crash shot down in Iran, have seized the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Tehran for redress , announced this body on Wednesday, July 5.
These countries believe that Iran “has breached a series of obligations” civil aviation by shooting down the Boeing operating Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 after takeoff from Tehran, causing the death of the 176 occupants, mostly Iranians and Canadians. The coalition announced in June that it would sue Iran before the ICJ, carrying out its ultimatum issued in December.
It asked Tehran to submit to binding arbitration within six months to ‘hold Iran accountable’. The four countries ask the Tax Court “full reparation for all damages suffered” and the obligation for Iran to pay “full compensation to the plaintiffs for the material and moral damages suffered by the victims and their families”.
Iran is also suing Canada
According to them, Iran must also return the property of the victims and publicly acknowledge its “unjustified international acts”. The four countries rely on the Montreal Convention of 1971, which regulates offenses against civil aviation. On January 8, 2020, the Iranian armed forces shot down the plane to connect Tehran to kyiv. They only admitted having shot down the aircraft three days later. ” by mistake “.
On June 28, Iran for its part decided to sue Canada before the highest court of the UN for having, in its legislation, allowed the victims of terrorist attacks to claim compensation before its courts in Tehran. In its complaint, Iran argues that Canada, which added the Islamic Republic to the list of countries sponsoring terrorism in 2012, violated Iranian state immunity.
The ICJ was created after the Second World War to resolve disputes between member states of the United Nations. Its judgments are without appeal, but can take years.