ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oksana Zolotaryova, Director-General of International Law at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, from left to right, and Agent Anton Korynevych, Special Ambassador of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, third from left, Russian agent Gennady Kuzmin, Ambassador-at-Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, from right to left, and Konstantin Kosorukov, on the right, they expect the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest court, to rule in The Hague, Netherlands, on their jurisdiction to hear a case brought through Ukraine. those days, after the Russian invasion, accusing Moscow of violating the genocide convention.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands >> The United Nations’ top court said today it has jurisdiction to rule on a request by Ukraine for a declaration that Kyiv is not responsible for genocide, but not on other aspects of a Ukrainian case against Russia.
The two countries have continuously accused each other of committing genocide. Ukraine took its case to the International Court of Justice just days after Russia’s February 2022 invasion, alleging that Moscow used false accusations of genocide to justify its attack that sparked the biggest confrontation in Europe since World War II.
But the court said it may simply not rule on that issue. Instead, it will do so over whether Ukraine has violated the conference, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed to justify the invasion. A final, legally binding resolution is most likely years away.
“In the case of the provision, even if the Russian Federation had alleged, in bad faith, that Ukraine had committed genocide and had taken certain measures to oppose it on that pretext, which the respondent (Ukraine) contends, this would in itself constitute a violation of its obligations” under the Genocide Convention, said the President of the Court, Joan E. Donoghue.
The court said it did not have jurisdiction to determine whether Russia’s invasion violated the 1948 genocide conference and whether Moscow’s popularity of two separatist republics in eastern Ukraine also violated the conference.
Despite those setbacks, Ukraine hailed the ruling as a victory that will allow the case to continue.
“It is up to the court to decide on the factor that Ukraine is not guilty of a mythical genocide, which the Russian Federation has falsely claimed Ukraine has committed,” the head of Ukraine’s legal team, Anton Korynevych, told reporters.
He also welcomed the fact that an initial court order ordering Russia to end its invasion remains in place, even though Moscow has flouted it.
Russian officials dropped the judicial comment.
Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told The Associated Press in an email that the court “decided that it also cannot rule on Russia’s use of force – that is, its invasion of Ukraine – because even though such use of force would possibly be a violation of foreign law, which prohibits the use of force in self-defense or in the context of a UN-ordered operation, but this is not a rule that exists under the Convention on Genocide.
He said the ruling could simply mean “that Ukraine could bring a case before the ICJ, this time under the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the illegal use of force by states opposed to other states. “
Moscow argued last year that the court dismissed the case before even contemplating the merits of Kiev’s allegations, but the 16-judge panel will now move forward.
During the September hearings, the head of Moscow’s legal team, Gennady Kuzmin, called Ukraine’s case “desperate and at odds with the long-standing jurisprudence of this court. “
A member of Moscow’s legal team, Sienho Yee, told judges in September that Russia had not used the genocide conference to justify its military moves in Ukraine, saying “they are in the right to self-determination and their inherent right to self-defense. “”. »
At the same hearings, Ukraine insisted on the court’s jurisdiction and criticized Moscow for ignoring an interim court order to end its invasion.
The court ordered Russia to halt military operations in Ukraine while legal proceedings continued in the early weeks of the war in March 2022.
“Russia’s defiance is also an attack on this court’s authority. Every missile that Russia fires at our cities, it fires in defiance of this court,” Korynevych, told the panel at the September hearings.
Judges rebuked Russia for its invasion on Wednesday in a separate case between the two countries similar to attacks in eastern Ukraine since 2014 and discrimination in annexed Crimea.
Ukraine’s case is based on the 1948 Genocide Convention, which Kiev and Moscow have ratified. The conference includes a clause according to which nations that have a dispute on the basis of its provisions can take the case to an international tribunal. Russia denies the form of a dispute, a position Ukraine rejects.
The Hague-based conference and tribunal have come under scrutiny in recent weeks when South Africa filed a lawsuit accusing Israel of genocide in its devastating military operation in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attacks.
In an initial ruling that did not address the merits of South Africa’s case, the court last week ordered Israel to do everything imaginable to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza.
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