Sir — This refers to the article, “Easy to allege, hard to prove” (July 25) by Ashutosh Misra. The author’s view that the lack of convincing evidence of Russian involvement in shooting down the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in the rebel-held territory of eastern Ukraine stands in the way of the International Court of Justice holding Russia blameworthy for the tragedy is maintainable.
There are a myriad instances of such aerial calamities being attributed to foul play by some state or non-state actors, but not established in the ICJ. It turn, the perpetrators have got away.
India’s efforts to establish linkage between Pakistan’s spy agency and the lashkar-e-Tayyeba in the 26/11 case have faced similar problems. Hence, despite the ongoing brouhaha over the alleged Russian involvement in the downing of MH17, further boosted by media reports, any attempt to prove Russian culpability will go in vain as it will fail the test of Article 8 of the International law Commission.
Article 8 maintains that “the conduct of a person of a group shall be considered as an act of a state under the international law if the person of the group is in fact acting upon the instruction of, or the direction or control of that state in carrying out the conduct”.