THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Court of Justice will decide on Friday whether it has jurisdiction to hear a case brought by Ukraine in the days after the Russian invasion accusing Moscow of violating the genocide convention.
In the controversial case, kyiv claims that Russia violated the historic 1948 convention by using false claims of genocide in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk as a pretext to attack Ukraine almost two years ago. Ukraine also accuses Moscow of “planning acts of genocide.”
Moscow rejects the allegations and argued last year that the court should dismiss the case before even considering the merits of kyiv’s claims.
In hearings in September, the head of Moscow’s legal team, Gennady Kuzmin, called the Ukraine case “hopelessly flawed and at odds with the long-standing jurisprudence of this court.”
For the court to have jurisdiction, Ukraine has to prove it has a dispute with Russia over the genocide convention.
A member of Moscow’s legal team, Sienho Yee, told judges in September that Russia had not used the genocide convention to justify its military actions in Ukraine, saying they “are based on the right to self-determination and its inherent right to self-defense.” .”
At the same hearings, Ukraine insisted that the court has jurisdiction and criticized Moscow for openly disobeying a provisional court order to stop its invasion.
The court ordered Russia to halt military operations in Ukraine while legal proceedings proceeded during the first weeks of the war, in March 2022.
“Russia’s challenge is also an attack on the authority of this court. Every missile that Russia fires at our cities, it does so in defiance of this court,” the leader of Ukraine’s legal team, Anton Korynevych, told the 16-judge panel.
The court’s judges chastised Russia for its invasion Wednesday as they ruled in another case between the two countries linked to attacks in eastern Ukraine since 2014 and discrimination in annexed Crimea.
If the judges rule that they have jurisdiction in the genocide case, the merits of Ukraine’s arguments will be discussed in the coming months. A final, legally binding decision is likely still years away.
Ukraine’s case is based on the 1948 Genocide Convention, which both kyiv and Moscow have ratified. The convention includes a provision under which nations that have a dispute based on its provisions can take that dispute to the world court. Russia denies there is a dispute, a position Ukraine rejects.
The convention and the Hague-based court came under intense scrutiny in recent weeks when South Africa brought a case accusing Israel of genocide in its devastating military operation in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attacks.
In a preliminary ruling that did not address the merits of South Africa’s case, the court last week ordered Israel to do everything possible to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza.
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