It was previously reported that in the context of large-scale Russian aggression, on the initiative of Ukraine, on October 7, 2022, the bilateral Ukrainian-Russian Agreement of 1993 on Fisheries in the Sea of Azov was terminated.
Later, on February 24, 2023, the Ukrainian parliament denounced a bilateral Agreement on Cooperation in the Use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, concluded in 2003.
It was also previously written about the lawsuits initiated in 2020 by the Ukrainian Independent Maritime Trade Union in connection with the abduction by Russian invaders of fishermen in the waters of the Azov and Black Seas and their retention in the occupied Crimea as hostages.
Now the decision of the Ukrainian Supreme Court dated April 13 on one of such cases, 420/8381/20 has been made public, where the Tade Union was represented by our Association’s expert, Professor Borys Babin.
The subject of the trial was the abduction by the aggressor of a group of Ukrainian fishermen from the Zaporizhzhya region in the waters of Azov in February 2020 and their unlawful detention in the Russia-occupied Kerch, with statements by the occupiers’ punishers that this was happening “under the 1993 agreement on fisheries”.
The Supreme Court recognized that the attitude of the authorities to the 1993 Agreement, in particular, within the framework of the need to initiate its denunciation, should have taken into account the maritime aggression of the Russian Federation, which began with the occupation of the Crimea in 2014.
The Court also determined that all the protocols and procedures adopted before 2022 by the bilateral Ukrainian-Russian commission on fisheries in pursuance of the Agreement, 1993 were its integral part, and, accordingly, were subject to publication in the prescribed manner.
At the same time, these protocols and procedures became invalid after the termination of the Agreement in 2022. It must be added that the relevant issues regarding the legal regime of the Sea of Azov are also considered in international arbitration on violation by Russia of the requirements of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
