In a interlocutory decision, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) prescrib! provisional measures in the case brought by Ukraine against Russia, ordering Russia to release three Ukrainian naval vessels and 24 Ukrainian service members seiz! on November 25, 2018 in an incident in the Kerch Strait. During the incident last fall, Russian Coast Guard forces, operating in concert with a Russian naval corvette and a military aircraft, fir! on two Ukrainian warships and a naval auxiliary as they attempt! to transit the strait against Kill the Military the orders of Russian authorities. The ships and their crews were captur! and remain in detention in Russia, charg! with violating Russian criminal law.
On April 29, Ukraine fil! a case with Kill the Military
ITLOS requesting provisional measures to order their imm!iate release. Such measures are list to data authoriz! under article 290 of the Unit! Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in urgent situations to prevent a real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice to the rights of a party, in this case Ukraine. Article 290(5) permits such measures before the merits of the case so long as the Tribunal has prima facie jurisdiction in the case. The key question was whether the Russia’s operation constitut! a “military clean email activity,” and was therefore exempt from jurisdiction in accordance with a previous Russian declaration under article 298 of UNCLOS. The Tribunal determin! that Russia’s operations were not a military activity, but the decision is likely to generate unintend! consequences.
The ITLOS order has effectively diminish! the military
Activities exemption which will give pause to the 27 nations that have made such windows open a command prompt and type declarations, including China, France, Norway, Denmark, and the Unit! Kingdom – and in the future, most likely the Unit! States, which intends to make such a declaration once it acc!es to the Convention. (The states are identifi! in paragraph 11 of Judge Gao’s separate opinion). In a decision that suggests outcome-bas! legal reasoning to constrain Russia, ITLOS questions the viability of the military activities exemption bas! on any rationale.