Damage to the Maritime Ecosystems from the Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and International Mechanisms of its Assessment

Abstract

The article focuses on possible mechanisms of international legal responsibility for the destruction of the dam of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant that happened in 2023 during the Russian aggression of Ukraine, Russian occupation, and attempted annexation of the Kherson Region. The authors described the realization norms of international humanitarian, criminal, maritime, ecological, and human rights law in the current reality of Ukraine and other Black Sea states. The article describes the relevant demands of Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land as annex to the Hague Convention (IV), Rome Statute and Geneva Conventions, Elements of Crime of International Criminal Court, UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and relevant ecologic conventions, activities of Ukrainian legal enforcement bodies and human rights defenders, also as ecocide crime conception. Authors stress the role of OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Vancouver Declaration, 2023, of PACE Resolution “Political consequences of the Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine” 2506 (2023), of European Parliament Resolution “On the Sustainable Reconstruction and Integration of Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic Community,” 2023/2739 (RSP) and International Crimea Platform activities. The relevant ecologic and maritime legal procedures might not necessarily result in international courts and that the absence of international criminal responsibility for ecocide makes natural perspectives for relevant responsibility just in the framework of relevant war crime pointed out in Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of Rome Statute or on a national legal level. At the same time, a set of international bodies’ resolutions adopted mentioned the Kakhovka case. It connected it with ecocide, an international crime that shall make a relevant impulse for developing relevant international legal concepts at a minimum on a doctrinal level.

Keywords

• crimes against the environment
• dnipro river
• ecocide
• international justice
• kakhovka dam
• rome statute
• russian aggression
• maritime ecosystems
• war crimes