Ukraine and Russia repeatedly clashed during hearings this week over whether the United Nations’ highest court has jurisdiction to hear a complaint that Moscow abused the 1948 Genocide Convention to justify its invasion of Ukraine last year.
Kyiv is asking the court to order Russia to halt its attacks, even though it is unlikely Moscow would comply.
Ukraine brought its complaint to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the United Nations’ highest legal body, shortly after the invasion. The complaint said that Russia had falsely accused the Ukrainian government of carrying out a genocide against Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and then had used the accusation as the pretext for launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Over five days of hearings that ended on Wednesday, delegates for Ukraine said there had been no acts of genocide against its citizens before the invasion and accused Russia of using disinformation and of twisting the Genocide Convention’s meaning. They asked the court, which has the mandate to deal with legal disputes between nations, to use its jurisdiction to help end the “illegal war.” The hearings were attended by international lawyers and diplomats.
It was Ukraine’s second attempt to seek the court’s help. The court’s judges had already issued an order to Russia to stop its military action in…
