THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Ukraine insisted Tuesday that the United Nations’ highest courtroom has jurisdiction to listen to a case alleging that Moscow abused the genocide conference to justify launching its devastating invasion final 12 months.
Kyiv needs judges on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice to order Russia to halt its assaults and pay reparations. However it seems unlikely Moscow would comply. Russia has flouted a binding interim order issued by the courtroom in March final 12 months to finish its invasion.
“Russia’s defiance can also be an assault on this courtroom’s authority. Each missile that Russia fires at our cities, it fires in defiance of this courtroom,” the chief of Ukraine’s authorized staff, Anton Korynevych, instructed the 16-judge panel.
Kyiv filed the case shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. It argues that the assault was based mostly on false claims of acts of genocide within the Luhansk and Donetsk areas of jap Ukraine.
“Russia is waging warfare in opposition to my nation within the title of this horrible lie that Ukraine is committing genocide in opposition to its personal individuals,” Korynevych stated.
“This lie is Russia’s pretext for aggression and conquest. Russia has introduced no credible proof. It can not. In actuality, Russia has turned the Genocide Conference on its head.”
Russia outlined its objections to the case on Monday, with the chief of Moscow’s authorized staff, Gennady Kuzmin, calling it “hopelessly flawed and at odds with the longstanding jurisprudence of this courtroom.”
Ukraine’s case is predicated on the 1948 Genocide Conference, which each Kyiv and Moscow have ratified. The conference features a provision that nations which have a dispute based mostly on its provisions can take that dispute to the World Court docket. Russia denies that there’s a dispute, a place Ukraine rejects.
One other lawyer for Ukraine, Marney Cheek, instructed judges that Russia’s preparations for its invasion final 12 months didn’t solely embody its huge troop buildup alongside Ukraine’s borders. “It additionally included eight years of constructing a sham justification for Putin’s so-called particular army operation,” she stated.
The Worldwide Court docket of Justice hears disputes between nations, not like the Worldwide Legal Court docket, additionally based mostly in The Hague, which holds people criminally accountable for offenses together with warfare crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity.
In March, the ICC issued a warfare crimes arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of duty for the kidnapping of Ukrainian youngsters.
In an unprecedented present of worldwide solidarity, 32 of Ukraine’s allies will make statements Wednesday in help of Kyiv’s authorized arguments.
The courtroom’s panel of worldwide judges will probably take weeks or months to achieve a choice on whether or not or not the case can proceed. If it does, a ultimate ruling is probably going years away.
After Ukraine wrapped up its arguments, Korynevych instructed reporters that “all of the preliminary objections filed by the Russian Federation should be dismissed and … the courtroom shall proceed to listening to this case on the deserves.”
In his opening assertion, Korynevych outlined what’s at stake for his nation, telling judges that “573 days in the past, Russia launched a brutal, full scale army assault on Ukraine. This can be a warfare of annihilation. Russia denies the very existence of the Ukrainian individuals. And needs to wipe us off the map.”
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Discover AP’s tales about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine