ICJ to Consider Part of Russia-Ukraine Genocide Case

The ICJ has ruled that it will not address whether Russia violated the 1948 Genocide Convention by using what Ukraine says were trumped-up genocide charges as a pretext for the war, even if the invasion may have broadly violated international laws.

Instead, it noted that the case will assess whether Ukraine committed genocide in the eastern parts of the country, as Russia claims, a matter where judges ruled that they have jurisdiction.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion on February 24, 2022, part of his argument was that pro-Russian people in eastern Ukraine had been “subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime”.

Ukraine filed a suit at the ICJ, “emphatically denying” this and arguing that Russia’s use of “genocide” as a pretext for invasion went against the Genocide Convention.

In the ruling read out by its president, Joan Donoghue, the court said that “in the present case, even if the Russian Federation had, in bad faith, alleged that Ukraine committed genocide and taken certain measures against it under such a pretext, which the respondent [Ukraine] contends, this would not in itself constitute a violation of obligations” under the genocide convention.

The World Court, said it does not have power to rule on whether Russia’s invasion violated the Genocide Convention, or on whether Moscow’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk, two breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine, amounted to a breach of the convention.

But the judges said they would allow Ukraine’s request for the court to rule that there was no “credible evidence that Ukraine is committing genocide in violation of the Genocide Convention” in eastern Ukraine.

Kyiv is seeking a declaration from the ICJ that it did not commit genocide. A final, legally binding decision is likely still years away.