The UN Court will take up the case of “Russiaʼs distortion of the concept of genocide”

The UN International Court of Justice rejected Russiaʼs objections and will now consider Ukraineʼs lawsuit regarding Russiaʼs violation of the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide.

This was reported by Babel correspondent Oksana Kovalenko.

Ukraine appealed to the court on February 26, 2022 with a lawsuit against Russia due to the fact that the Russian Federation manipulated the convention — it justified the full-scale invasion by the fact that Ukraine allegedly committed genocide in Donbas.

The Ukrainian side asks the court, in particular, to recognize that there is no reliable evidence of genocide in Donbas, to recognize Russiaʼs full-scale attack on Ukraine as a violation of the genocide convention, and also to recognize that Russia violated the convention by recognizing the independence of the "L/DPR".

The court agreed to examine the merits of only the first claim: that Ukraine did not commit genocide in Donbas. At the same time, the court rejected most of Russiaʼs objections to the lawsuit and the courtʼs jurisdiction.

Russian high-ranking officials have insisted that President Vladimir Putinʼs words about genocide are a "rhetorical turn" that is not based on the definition of international law. The Russian Federation also tried to prove that, from a legal point of view, the UN court has no jurisdiction to consider this lawsuit of Ukraine.

• On January 31, 2024, the UN International Court of Justice passed a decision in another so-called major case. The court recognized that Russia violates international law, in particular two international conventions — on the fight against the financing of terrorism and on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. Since 2017, Ukraine has proven that Russia has been financing militants and leading them in the occupied parts of Donbas since 2014. In addition, she tried to prove that Russia oppresses Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in occupied Crimea. On January 31, for the first time in The Hague, Russia was found guilty of violating international conventions in Ukraine.
• Ukraine is the first country that reached a court decision on the merits of the Convention on Racial Discrimination. And the convention on the financing of terrorism has never been considered in the UN International Court of Justice.