PI Brief Update

The Enlarged Partial Agreement on The Register of Damage Caused by The Aggression of The Russian Federation Against Ukraine - Sebastian Bates, Temple Garden Chambers

28/06/23. At a summit in May, the Council of Europe announced the establishment of a Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine.

According to Article 1(1) of the Statute of the Register, the Register ‘shall serve as a record, in documentary form, of evidence and claims information on damage, loss or injury caused, on or after 24 February 2022, in the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders, extending to its territorial waters, to all natural and legal persons concerned, as well as the State of Ukraine, including its regional and local authorities, state-owned or controlled entities, by the Russian Federation’s internationally wrongful acts in or against Ukraine’.

The Register ‘shall have its seat in The Hague’ and a ‘satellite office in Ukraine’, according to Article 3 of the Statute.

Under Article 2(1) of the Statute, ‘[t]he Register shall receive and process information on claims of damage and evidence; categorise, classify and organise such claims, assess and determine the eligibility of claims for inclusion in the Register and record the eligible claims for the purposes of their future examination and adjudication’. Importantly,‘[t]he Register shall not have any adjudication functions with respect to such claims, including determination of responsibility and allocation of any payments or compensation.’

By Article 2(2) of the Statute, ‘[e]ligibility criteria for recording of claims in the Register for the purposes of their future examination and adjudication shall be determined in the rules and regulations of the Register’. Practitioners should be aware that the ‘natural and legal persons concerned’ will be able to submit to the Register ‘[c]laims, evidence and related information’: see Article 2(3).

Article 11 of the Statute provides that ‘any information on claims and damage received by the Register, including any evidence, shall be treated as confidential’, subject to ‘[r]ules on access to documents and protection of data related to claims submitted to the Register shall be proposed by the Board [of the Register] and approved by the Conference [of Participants of the Register], including on the sharing of information under the provisions of this Statute’.

According to Article 2(5) of the Statute, ‘[t]he work of the Register, including its digital platform with all data about claims and evidence recorded therein, is intended to constitute the first component of a future international compensation mechanism to be established by a separate international instrument in co-operation with Ukraine’.

Comment

At its first meeting, the Conference of Participants elected the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the Council of Europe as Chair.

There are now, of course, a number of Ukrainians who have come to the United Kingdom in response to the aggression of the Russian Federation.

The Bar Council and the Law Society have called for support for Ukraine and Ukrainians.

Practitioners may therefore wish to assist people in making submissions to the Register in due course.

Image ©iStockphoto.com/Toshe_O