Iran has filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, and Britain over a UN aviation body’s ruling related to the downing of a passenger plane in 2020.

The case submitted Thursday called on the ICJ to rule that the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) did not have jurisdiction over the case.

The four countries jointly initiated legal proceedings against Iran in January 2024, accusing Tehran of “using weapons against a civil aircraft in flight.”

The Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 was downed shortly after takeoff from Tehran on January 8, 2020 and all 176 people on board were killed.

Last month, the ICAO decided it had jurisdiction to rule on the case brought by the mentioned countries and rejected Iran’s preliminary objection to the case.

Immediately after the plane was shot down, Iran has said, an independent technical team was formed and the necessary measures were taken with transparency and seriousness to clarify the various aspects of the incident. 

In its application to the ICJ, Tehran said that its military had downed flight PS752 “unintentionally and due to human error.”

“The Iranian military had misidentified and targeted the flight by two missiles without obtaining authorization, contrary to mandatory military regulations,” it added.

According to the case, the Iranian military was in “a period of heightened military alert… in anticipation of a possible attack by US military forces.”

In 2020, Iran offered to pay “$150,000 or the equivalent in euros” to each of the victims’ families, but the four countries fired a separate case at the ICJ in 2023, asking the court to make Tehran pay “full compensation” to the families.

The ICJ was set up after World War II to rule on disputes between UN member states.

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