This article investigates the main international remedies against infringement of civilians’ property rights that physical persons can make use of and, in some cases, have already made use of following violations of their property rights during the military operations in the East of Ukraine and during the annexation of Crimea by Russia. In particular, we analyse protection of property rights of civilians using the remedies for victims of violations of international humanitarian law during armed conflicts. The initial attention to this aspect is due to the fact that this branch of international law, although itshould be applied in armed conflicts together with international human rights law, has the status of lex specialis in the event of a conflict of norms.

A system of means to protect civilian objects on the basis of norms that create prohibitions or obligations was developed under the international humanitarian law in an effort to ensure the normal life of civilian population in the zone of armed conflict. Compliance with these norms by belligerents should contribute to the preservation of these objects and, therefore, of the property rights to them. At the same time, international humanitarian law does not comprehensively regulate the issue of liability for violation of property rights during armed conflicts and the procedure for bringing to liability, it is done by applying the law of international responsibility and international criminal law. The first defines the types of state liability for misconduct during armed conflicts, the second – the types of liability of physical persons responsible for committing war crimes, who are brought to liability, for example, through the mechanism of the International Criminal Court.

At the same time, implementation of the universal treaty-based control mechanisms for the protection of human rights under the UN principles is complicated by the fact that the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, as the most comprehensive document in the field of universal economic, social, and cultural rights, does not provide for the obligations of states to guarantee and protect property rights. Such protection can only be carried out indirectly on the basis of this act. This can also be done on the basis of other international human rights treaties, but only if the violation of property rights is the result of non-compliance with anti-discrimination norms. In addition, these procedures have systemic shortcomings (long-term nature, excessive bureaucracy, lack of effective mechanisms to influence the state that violates rights, moreover, to influence illegal territorial entities), which call into question their effectiveness.

At the same time, other mechanisms may be implemented under the UN principles to help protect the rights of civilians during armed conflicts. Thus, the UN Human Rights monitoring mission in Ukraine is currently operating in Ukraine, with a mandate that takes into account provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which provides for the right of everyone to own property. Therefore, it includes all human rights without exception, which also allows the Mission to ascertain violations of property rights and track the progress that Ukraine is making in eliminating such violations, but the impact of this mission on the self-proclaimed republics of DPR and LPR, as well as on Russia, which systematically violates human rights in Crimea, is not so obvious and significant.

At the same time, from the owner’s point of view, the most effective international legal mechanism for the protection of property rights is the mechanism of resolving disputes between physical persons and the state in the European Court of Human Rights, since if the court finds a violation of Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950, the injured party can be awarded just satisfaction for material or moral damage. In addition, according to the principle of restitutio in integrum (restoration, as complete as possible, of the legal status of the recoverer before the violation of the Convention), the Court can rule for the state to adopt individual measures aiming to restore the violated rights of a person, which is of particular interest in matters of protection of property rights.

Bibliography

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Theses

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Websites

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