Russia urges UN’s top court to toss out case filed by Ukraine dealing with Moscow’s invasion

The Hague, Sep 18: Russia on Monday called a Ukrainian case alleging that Moscow abused the Genocide Convention to justify its invasion last year an “abuse of process,” as lawyers for Moscow sought to have judges at the United Nation’s highest court throw it out.
As a series of lawyers laid out Moscow’s objections to the case, the leader of Russia’s legal team at the International Court of Justice, Gennady Kuzmin, told the 16-judge panel that Ukraine’s case that seeks to halt the invasion “is, hopelessly flawed and at odds with the longstanding jurisprudence of this court.”
He said Ukraine’s filing is “a manifest disregard of the proper administration of justice and constitutes an abuse of process.”
Kyiv’s case filed shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, argues that the attack was based on false claims of acts of genocide in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine and alleges that Moscow was planning genocidal acts in Ukraine.
Ukraine claimed that “Russia has turned the Genocide Convention on its head – making a false claim of genocide as a basis for actions on its part that constitute grave violations of the human rights of millions of people across Ukraine.”
Lawyers for Russia insist that the court does not have jurisdiction and that the genocide convention cannot be used to regulate use of force by nations.
Ukraine’s legal team will respond Tuesday and urge judges to press ahead to hearings.
In his opening speech, Kuzmin echoed Russian claims about what he called “neo-Nazis” in Kyiv and drew parallels between Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the 1999 NATO airstrikes on Serbia aimed at halting Belgrade’s military campaign in Kosovo.
Ukraine brought the case to the Hague-based court based on the 1948 Genocide Convention, which both Moscow and Kyiv have ratified.
In an interim ruling in March 2022, the court ordered Russia to halt hostilities in Ukraine, a binding legal ruling that Moscow has flouted as it presses ahead with its devastating attacks on Ukrainian towns and cities. (AP)