Ukraine has asked the United Nations’ top court to order Russia to stop financing its proxies in the war-torn Donbas and end its persecution of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars living in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea.
The requests are part of a case that opened in the International Court of Justice in The Hague on March 6. The case is Ukraine’s most extensive lawsuit yet aimed at proving that Russia has violated international law.
Russian lawyers will present their arguments to the court on March 7. Moscow continues to deny supplying separatists in Ukraine’s east with any military equipment or weaponry, although there is now overwhelming evidence that these denials are false.
The sides will have a second round of “oral observations” on March 8 and 9.
Deputy Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal, the head of Ukraine’s delegation at the court, said during her address to the court that Russia has violated the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, as well as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Therefore, considering that “during the last weeks the stakes have risen,” with the attacks by Kremlin-backed separatists against civilians escalating, Ukraine would ask the court to order emergency measures, Zerkal said.
With regard to the Terrorism Financing Convention, Ukraine requested that Russia be ordered to: control its border to prevent further acts of terrorism financing, including the supply of weapons from its territory to Ukraine; halt and prevent all transfers from its territory of money, weapons, vehicles, equipment, training, or personnel to groups that have engaged in acts of terrorism against civilians; and take all measures at its disposal to ensure that any groups operating in Ukraine that have previously received transfers from Russian territory will refrain from carrying out acts of terrorism against civilians in Ukraine.
With regard to Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Ukraine requested that the court order Russia to: refrain from any act of racial discrimination against persons, groups of persons, or institutions in the territory under its effective control, including the Crimean peninsula; cease and desist from acts of political and cultural suppression against the Crimean Tatar people, including suspending the decree banning the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People; and take all necessary steps to halt the disappearance of Crimean Tatar individuals and to promptly investigate those disappearances that have already occurred.
Ukraine also wants Russia to “cease and desist from acts of political and cultural suppression against the ethnic Ukrainian people in Crimea, including suspending restrictions on Ukrainian-language education and respecting ethnic Ukrainian language and educational rights, while this case is pending,” according to case materials.
Other members of Ukrainian delegation include Marney Cheek, co-chairwoman of law firm Covington & Burling’s international arbitration practice, Jonathan Gimblett, a Partner of Covington & Burling LLP, and Professor Harold Hongju Koh, the former dean of Yale Law School.
During Ukraine’s presentation, Zerkal said Kyiv had tried to solve the dispute through dozens of diplomatic notes and meetings, but that Russia has either denied the existence of any dispute at all, or ignored the notes.
According to Koh, Ukraine is basically asking the court to order “Russia to do what Russia has already promised to do.” Therefore, if Russia has not been involved in financing separatists in the Donbas or in human rights violations in Crimes, it does not need to do anything.
At least 22 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in February and 117 wounded, according to a Kyiv Post count based on the information from the military and volunteers. Overall, since the Russian military invasion, about 9,800 people were killed and up to 23,000 wounded. This number includes, in particular, 2,819 Ukrainian soldiers and representatives of other law-enforcement and security bodies who have been killed during the war.
In Crimea, human rights organizations have documented at least 265 cases of human rights violations, including kidnappings, searches of offices and apartments, arrests, and criminal cases being brought on bogus charges.
The real number might be much higher, however, as Crimean Tatars and other pro-Ukrainian citizens on the peninsula may not be reporting all violations out of fear of retaliation from the Russian occupation authorities.
