On Tuesday, Ukraine urged the International Court of Justice to impose reparations on Russia for its “war of annihilation,” claiming that international law itself was at stake.
Sitting just a few meters from his Russian opponents in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Anton Korynevych, Ukraine’s lead speaker, told the court that Russia is not above the law and it must be held accountable.
Korynevych told the judges that you have the authority to declare that Russia’s measures are illegal, that its ongoing abuses must halt, that your orders must be obeyed, and that Russia must make reparations.
Ukraine pulled Russia before the ICJ days after the February 24, 2022, raid, aiming to fight its aggressive neighbor on all fronts, lawful as well as diplomatic and military.
Ukraine argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked a considered “genocide” against pro-Russian people in eastern Ukraine as one of the causes for Russia raiding its neighbor.
According to Ukraine, this is an abuse of the United Nations Genocide Convention, set up in 1948 and signed by both Russia and Ukraine.
“Can it be the case that a state can misuse the Genocide Convention to explain a war of conquest?” asked Korynevych.
“It must be ‘no’ for the sake of the world, to stop international law from being turned into a tool for human rights misuses and collapse,” he added.
In a preliminary ruling in March previous year, the ICJ stood with Kyiv and demanded Moscow stop its attack immediately.
But Russia opposed to this ruling, stating the ICJ had no lawful right to decide in this case.
Korynevych said, “Russia’s resistance is also a raid on this court’s authority. Every missile that Moscow shoots at our cities, it blasts in defiance of this court.”
The hearings now process in the Peace Palace center around whether or not the ICJ has jurisdiction.
Moscow’s legal team claimed on Monday that the lawsuit should be discarded.
