A salvo of Russian army rockets hit a TV antenna, buildings and the adjacent Babi Yar park in Kyiv on March 2, 2022. LAURENT VAN DER STOCK FOR “WORLD”
The looming legal battle at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) could put Russia in an awkward position. On Monday, March 7, and Tuesday, March 8, Russia and Ukraine will sue at the Peace Palace in The Hague, where this UN court is responsible for settling disputes between states. Kyiv accuses Moscow of abusing the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide to justify Ukraine’s aggression. The Russian military operation is based on lies, Kyiv claims. Therefore, it is illegal.
“On the basis of a false accusation, Russia is engaged in a military invasion of Ukraine, which is associated with serious and massive violations of the human rights of the Ukrainian people,” Kiev lawyers write in an appeal to judges. So far, repeated condemnations of Russian aggression against Ukraine, including the adoption of a resolution by the UN General Assembly on March 2, remain political acts. But a judgment in favor of Ukraine coming from this highly respected court in the diplomatic theater, including in Russia, would be a setback for Moscow.
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Essentially, Kyiv is asking the court to declare that no acts of genocide were committed in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions by Ukraine and that Russia cannot take any action “based on false allegations of genocide.” He also asks eighteen judges to declare that Vladimir Putin’s recognition of the independence of the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk republics on the eve of the war is “based on a false allegation of genocide,” the military said. the operation began on 24 February. The attack, “which is a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on several fronts,” Kyiv writes.
Pending a court ruling on the merits of the case, a procedure that could take years, Ukraine has asked judges to take urgent protective action. She asks the court to “protect the Ukrainian people by ordering Russia to suspend a senseless military operation that is clearly based on Russia’s false and absurd allegation”: she claims she is acting to prevent genocide.
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“Russia will be deprived of all arguments”
“If this aggression is not controlled,” his lawyers add, “there is not only a risk, but also the certainty of significant and irreparable human lives and material losses, as well as a humanitarian crisis. Ukraine further states that “the Russian invasion has resulted in numerous Ukrainian civilian and military casualties, bombing of many cities throughout Ukraine, and the displacement of tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens both within Ukraine and beyond its international borders.”
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