Ukraine will square off with Russia at the UN’s top court on Monday, March 7, 2022, with Kyiv asking judges in The Hague to order Moscow to immediately halt its invasion.

Kyiv lodged an urgent case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Sunday, February 27, 2022, suggesting that Russia illegally justified its war, by falsely alleging genocide in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

Ukraine alleges that it is Russia that is planning “acts of genocide” in the offensive launched by President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, February 24, 2022.

Kyiv has asked the court to take provisional measures ordering Russia to “immediately suspend the military operations”, pending a full judgment that could take years.

Kyiv’s application to the court noted that “Ukraine emphatically denies that acts of genocide have been committed.”

“Russia thus expressly bases its ‘special military operation’, in fact, a full-scale, brutal invasion of Ukraine, on an absurd lie.”
Kyiv’s application

The two-day hearing at the ICJ’s Peace Palace headquarters will begin with Ukraine speaking on Monday, March 7, 2022, at 9:00 GMT. Russia is slated to respond on Tuesday, March 8, 2022.

It was not clear how Moscow would formally contest Ukraine’s application and the Russian Embassy in The Hague did not respond to a request for comment.

In a separate statement on Tuesday, March 1, 2022, the ICJ said the President of the International Court of Justice, Judge Joan E. Donoghue, sent “an urgent communication” to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

“I have the honour to refer to the Request for the indication of provisional measures filed in the proceedings instituted by Ukraine against the Russian Federation on 26 February 2022. Acting in conformity with Article 74, paragraph 4, of the Rules of Court, I hereby call the attention of the Russian Federation to the need to act in such a way as will enable any order the Court may make on the request for provisional measures to have its appropriate effects.”
Statement from ICJ President, Judge Joan E. Donoghue

In another blow to Moscow’s case, its legal team will be weakened by the resignation of one of its long-time French lawyers, Alain Pellet.

Pellet in an open letter noted that “Lawyers can defend more or less questionable causes.”

“But it has become impossible to represent in forums dedicated to the application of the law a country that so cynically despises it.”
French lawyer, Alain Pellet.

The ICJ was set up after World War II to rule on disputes between UN member states, based mainly on treaties and conventions.

Its rulings are binding but it has no real means to enforce them.

What will be the Outcome of Kyiv’s complaint?

Experts said Ukraine’s effort to drag Russia to the world court over the invasion could have symbolic value, though it was unclear if Moscow would heed to any order.

Cecily Rose, an Assistant Public Law Professor at Leiden University, intimated that “It remains to be seen what will happen at the provisional measures stage but my bet is that the court will find that it has prima facie jurisdiction.”

International Public Law Professor, Marko Milanovic, noted in the European Journal of International Law that “Not that Russia is likely to comply but still, rhetorically and symbolically there is some power to this.”

This case hinges on the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, to which both Ukraine and Russia are parties. The ICJ is already dealing with a dispute between the two countries dating back to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Moscow rebels in Donetsk and Lugansk.

But now, Kyiv pointed out that Russia “has falsely claimed that acts of genocide have occurred in the Lugansk and Donetsk” regions and has invaded on that basis.

“Russia’s lie is all the more offensive, and ironic, because it appears that it is Russia planning acts of genocide in Ukraine.”
Kyiv’s application

The case is separate from Ukraine’s war crimes investigation launched by the International Criminal Court (ICC), a different tribunal also based in The Hague.

The ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, on Wednesday, March 2, 2022, announced he was going ahead with an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine since Moscow’s invasion.