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ICJ headquarters in the Peace Palace in The Hague
Photo: Sem van der Wal / ANP / IMAGO
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has declared partial jurisdiction over a lawsuit brought by Ukraine against Russia. The UN's top court will decide whether or not Ukraine committed genocide - as Moscow claims to justify its invasion - in the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine.
The court largely rejected Moscow's objection that it had no authority to make a decision on the matter. At the same time, the court declared that it had no jurisdiction to decide on the Ukrainian accusation that Russia had violated the UN Genocide Convention with its invasion of Ukraine. Kiev filed the lawsuit with the UN's highest court a few days after Russia's invasion began on February 24, 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin initially justified his soldiers' invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 by saying, among other things, that the population of Russian origin in eastern Ukraine was exposed to "harassment and genocide by the Kiev regime." Just two days later, Ukraine filed a lawsuit with the ICJ in which it "strongly denied" the allegations and in turn accused Moscow of violating the UN Genocide Convention.
In a preliminary ruling in March 2022, the ICJ called on Russia to immediately stop the invasion, but Moscow objected to this, citing the court's powers.
The ICJ in The Hague is the central judicial body of the United Nations and decides on disputes between countries. However, the court has no real tools at its disposal to enforce compliance with its rulings. In the case of Ukraine, enforcement of the ruling is also made more difficult by the ongoing war.
"Attack on authority"
Ukraine's representative to the ICJ, Anton Korynevych, described Moscow's stance at a hearing in September as an "attack on the authority" of the UN court. "Every missile Russia fires at our cities is firing in defiance of this court," he said. On the other hand, Russian representative Gennady Kuzmin accused Kiev of saying that the claim that Moscow had “abused” the term genocide “could not be further from the truth.”
More than 30 Ukraine allies supported Kiev's appeal to the ICJ. However, the court rejected a request from the United States to join the proceedings. From the point of view of experts, a trial and a ruling by the ICJ in favor of Ukraine would be of great symbolic importance for Kiev.
In another case on Wednesday, the ICJ largely dismissed a lawsuit filed by Ukraine in which Russia was accused of “financing terrorism” in eastern Ukraine. The court simply ruled that Russia “does not make sufficient efforts to investigate people who have allegedly committed crimes.”
col/AFP/AP/Reuters