Hearings will take place on March 7 & 8 in a case Ukraine instituted against Russia Saturday before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Hague in light of the ongoing military invasion.
According to Ukraine, the case concerns “a dispute . . . relating to the interpretation, application, and fulfillment of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
Ukraine contends that Russia falsely claimed that acts of genocide have occurred in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine.
It alleged that based on these false claims, Russia recognized the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and launched a “special military operation” against Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also claimed that NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
The operation is supposedly meant to pursue the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine, which has a Jewish leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Ukraine has emphatically denied the occurrence of such genocide and has made the ICJ application “to establish that Russia has no lawful basis to take action in and against Ukraine for the purpose of preventing and punishing any purported genocide.”
Ukraine has also accused Russia of “planning acts of genocide in Ukraine” and of “intentionally killing and inflicting serious injury on members of the Ukrainian nationality.”
This, according to Ukraine, makes Russia culpable under Article II of the Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as acts committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
In addition to the application, Ukraine has requested the ICJ to indicate provisional measures “in order to prevent irreparable prejudice to the rights of Ukraine and its people and to avoid aggravating or extending the dispute between the parties under the Genocide Convention.”
As per Article 41 of the Statute of the ICJ (Statute), in appropriate circumstances, the court has the power to indicate provisional measures necessary to preserve the rights of a party. Notice of the measures must be given to the parties and to the UN Security Council. Article 74 of the ICJ Rules provides that a request for the indication of provisional measures shall have priority over all other cases.
In the LaGrand case, an ICJ dispute between Germany and the US, the ICJ held that provisional measures ordered under Article 41 of the Statute are binding on parties. Once such measures are indicated, an ad hoc committee, composed of three judges, assists the court in monitoring their implementation.
In previous instances of the ICJ’s application of the Genocide Convention, provisional measures have included requiring members to take all measures to prevent the commission of the crime of genocide and refrain from any acts of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, or complicity in genocide.
The Russian aggression has forged unity among disparate political factions in Ukraine and inspired courageous public protests in Russia, which has a notorious record of cracking down on dissent.
Between February 24 and February 28, according to figures collected by OVD-Info, an independent human rights project working to protect freedom of assembly in Russia, authorities arbitrarily detained at least 5982 anti-war protestors across Russia.
On February 27, the Prosecutor General’s Office published a warning that any persons determined to be providing financial or any other support to foreign state, foreign or international organizations to the detriment of Russia’s security and defense capacity will be prosecuted on ”high treason,” punishable with up to 20 years’ imprisonment.
Today, Russia is more repressive than it has ever been in the post-Soviet era, according to the organization Human Rights Watch. The authorities crackdown on critical media, harass peaceful protesters, engage in smear campaigns against independent groups, and stifle them with fines.
Foreign organizations are increasingly banned as “undesirable,” and Russian nationals and organizations are penalized for supposed involvement with them. A new law enables Russian authorities to partially or fully block access to the internet in Russia in the event of undefined “security threats” and gives the government control of the country’s internet traffic, enhancing its capacity to conduct fine-grain censorship. Impunity for egregious abuses by security officials in Chechnya remains rampant.
“For years, Russian authorities have been suppressing free speech and peaceful protests to stifle critical voices,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Now the government is silencing all those who speak out against the war with Ukraine.”
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