Ukraine accused Russia at the UN's highest court of using "false allegations of genocide" to justify its full-scale invasion in February 2022, saying Moscow has invoked the Geneva Convention "to destroy."
Ukraine presented its case at the second day of preliminary hearings at The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) on September after Moscow opened the court a day earlier saying the case was "hopelessly flawed" and should be dismissed. The hearings, set to run until September 27, will focus on legal arguments about the jurisdiction of the ICJ.
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Kyiv argues Moscow is abusing international law by saying the invasion was justified to prevent an alleged genocide in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv says there was no risk of genocide in the area, where it had been fighting Russian-backed forces since 2014, and that the Genocide Convention does not allow an invasion to stop an alleged genocide.
Kyiv also accuses Russia of “planning acts of genocide in Ukraine” and of “intentionally killing and inflicting serious injury on members of the Ukrainian nationality,” and is thus committing genocide itself.
“Russia is waging war against my country in the name of this terrible lie that Ukraine is committing genocide against its own people,” Ukraine's representative Anton Korynevych told the judges on September 19.
He called on the ICJ to decide that it has jurisdiction to hear the case fully and eventually rule that Russia must pay reparations for invading Ukraine under a false pretext.
“Can a state use false allegations of genocide as a pretext to destroy cities, bomb civilians, and deport children from their homes? When the Genocide Convention is so cynically abused, is this court powerless? The answer to these questions must be ‘no,’” Korynevych said.
Russian officials continue to accuse Ukraine of committing genocide without providing evidence of such alleged crimes. Moscow says Ukraine is using the case before the UN’s top court as a roundabout way to get a ruling on the overall legality of Russia's military actions.
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On September 18 Russia urged the ICJ to dismiss the case, claiming Kyiv's legal arguments were “hopelessly flawed.”
In March 2022, the ICJ sided with Ukraine, ordering Russia to “immediately suspend” its military action.
Russia has so far ignored the court’s order to stop the invasion.
Earlier in 2023 the court admitted requests by 32 of Ukraine's allies to join the case on Kyiv’s side. Those include all European Union member states except Hungary, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and other allies of Ukraine, but not the United States.
The ICJ is expected to hear from Ukraine’s allies on September 20.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
The Hague-based ICJ was created after World War II to resolve legal complaints submitted by states over alleged breaches of international law. It is the supreme judicial institution of the United Nations. The rulings of the ICJ are binding but it has no direct means of enforcing them.
Experts quoted by Reuters said a ruling in Kyiv's favor would not stop the war but could impact future reparation payments.