In framework of permanent cooperation with United Nations bodies and agencies our Association communicated with UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment Ms. Astrid Puentes Riaño, in framework of preparation her report for the UN General Assembly, regarding environmental and strategic impact assessments for the environmental human rights.
Our submission, published at UN official web-sources this July, stresses, with reference to Ukraine’s Minister published data, that Ukraine has recorded, till March 2025, over 8,000 cases of environmental damage as a result of Russian aggression; the total amount of damage has already reached almost EUR 85 billion.
ARC’s submission reminded to UN bodies about challenges to ecology, caused by Kakhovka HPP destruction on 6 June, 2023 by the Russian occupation forces and stressed on related two-year disinformation company, continued by Russian propaganda, with special attention to characteristic semi-confessions of the Sevastopol collaborator, former Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Dr. Sergei Konovalov.
ARC’s submission described our activities for disseminating truth about Russian environmental international crimes in Ukraine at Sharm el-Sheikh, Dubai, and Baku UN Climate Change Conferences; also, at the World Law Congress, 2023, at IMO, and in the Danube Commission, relevant documents and analytic publications were added.
ARC’s submission reminded to UN bodies also on the next catastrophic situation connected with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, happened on December 15, 2024, when the Russian tanker “Volgoneft-212” and “Volgoneft-239”, polluted Black Sea by thousand tons of fuel oil near the Kerch Strait.
Submission stressed that Ukrainian, Estonian, and Georgian lawyers, ecologists, and maritime experts pointed out that the consequences of the current catastrophe will be in the Black Sea waters for more than twenty years and that relevant risks cover waters of some states, including Bulgaria and Romania.
Submission added that Russian illegal actions in conditions of ongoing Russian aggression and occupation of Ukrainian territories brutally violated the relevant human rights of the Crimean population, including Indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
These are the right to development, right to health, right to food and water, violating the local entities’ collective interests, violating principles of environmentally sound management, adequate housing, equitable international order, and international solidarity, submission stressed, and relevant submission 0q9h7usy, sent to UN Human Rights bodies on behalf of Mejlis of Crimean Tatar People, was added.
Russian attacks against Ukraine, including missile and drone attacks against dangerous enterprises and storages, with the next toxic pollution of the environment, have features of war crimes and of ecocide, ARC’s submission stressed also. Our cooperation with the UN on relevant environmental issues will be continued.
