Ukraine allies back Kyiv's genocide challenge against Russia at World
Court
Send a link to a friend
[September 20, 2023]
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - More than a dozen European states, as well
as Australia and Canada, on Wednesday asked the World Court to decide it
has jurisdiction in a case brought by Kyiv alleging that Russia abused
the Genocide Convention to provide a pretext for the invasion of
Ukraine.
Ukraine brought the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ),
the highest U.N. court for disputes between states, days after Russia
launched a full scale war on its smaller neighbor on Feb. 24 last year.
Germany told judges the countries "strongly believe" the court has
jurisdiction. German representative Wiebke Ruckert said her country had
a strong interest in how the genocide treaty was interpreted "not least
in view of our past". |
![](../images/092023PIX/news_a15.jpg)
Ambassador-at-Large of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anton
Korynevych, Director General for International Law of the Ukrainian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oksana Zolotaryova and Russian Ambassador
to Netherlands, Alexander Vasilievich Shulgin, Russia's
Ambassador-at-Large Gennady Kuzmin, Russian Deputy Permanent
Representative to the U.N. Maria Zabolotskaya attend a hearing as Russia
begins presenting its objections against the jurisdiction of the World
Court in a genocide case brought by Ukraine which claims Moscow falsely
applied genocide law to justify its February 24, 2022 invasion, in The
Hague, Netherlands, September 18, 2023. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw |
Kyiv argues that Russia is abusing the 1948 U.N. Genocide
Convention, adopted in the aftermath of World War Two, by saying
the invasion was justified to stop an alleged genocide in
eastern Ukraine.
Some 150 states have signed the Convention and as such have an
interest in how it should be interpreted by the court. An
unprecedented number of states have intervened in this ICJ case,
in a strong show of support for Kyiv.
Russia asked the court on Monday to throw out the case, claiming
Kyiv's legal arguments were "hopelessly flawed" and that Moscow
had not actually invoked the genocide treaty when it used the
term genocide.
Some 32 states will address the court, all in support of
Ukraine, which wants the court to go on and hear the case on
merit and find that Russia must pay reparations.
Ukraine says there was no risk of genocide in eastern Ukraine,
where it had been fighting Russian-backed forces since 2014. The
convention defines genocide as crimes committed "with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group, as such".
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Anthony
Deutsch, Alexandra Hudson)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](column_spacer.png)
|
|
|