UN prime courtroom rejects most of Ukraine’s ‘terror financing’ case in opposition to Russia | EUROtoday

Issued on: 31/01/2024 – 18:49

2 min

Kyiv had accused Moscow of being a “terrorist state” whose assist for pro-Russian separatists in jap Ukraine was a harbinger of the full-fledged 2022 invasion.

It needed Russia to compensate all civilians caught up within the battle, in addition to victims from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over jap Ukraine.

But the International Court of Justice (ICJ) tossed out most of Ukraine’s pleas, ruling solely that Russia was “failing to take measures to investigate facts… regarding persons who have allegedly committed an offence.”

The ICJ “rejects all other submissions made by the Ukraine,” it mentioned in an announcement.

This case predates Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The ICJ will resolve on Friday whether or not it has jurisdiction to rule in a separate case over that battle.

The courtroom mentioned that solely money transfers may very well be thought-about as assist for alleged terrorist teams underneath the phrases of the worldwide conference on terrorism financing.

This “does not include the means used to commit acts of terrorism, including weapons or training camps,” the courtroom dominated.

“Consequently, the alleged supply of weapons to various armed groups operating in Ukraine… fall outside the material scope of the ICSFT” conference, mentioned the courtroom.

‘Lawfare’

Russia was additionally within the dock for alleged breaches of a world conference on racial discrimination as a result of its remedy of the Tatar minority and Ukrainian audio system in occupied Crimea.

Here the courtroom discovered that Russia had not taken enough measures to allow training in Ukrainian.

The case began in 2017 and has seen prolonged exchanges within the ICJ’s Great Hall of Justice, plus 1000’s of pages of paperwork submitted to the judges.

It is a part of a technique of “lawfare” waged by Ukraine in opposition to its adversary that has additionally seen it drag Moscow to courtroom over maritime regulation and alleged human rights abuses.

During hearings on the case, Alexander Shulgin, Russia’s ambassador to the Netherlands, accused Ukraine of “blatant lies and false accusations… even to this court”.

Top Ukrainian diplomat Anton Korynevych retorted that Russia was making an attempt to “wipe us off the map”.

“Beginning in 2014, Russia illegally occupied Crimea and then engaged in a campaign of cultural erasure, taking aim at ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars,” mentioned Korynevych.

In 2017, the ICJ rejected Kyiv’s preliminary request for emergency measures to halt Russia’s funding of separatists.

The ICJ, primarily based in The Hague, guidelines on disputes between states and is commonly confused with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes battle crimes by people.

Its rulings are last and can’t be topic to enchantment nevertheless it has little energy to implement them.

For instance, it issued an emergency ruling ordering Russia to halt its invasion one month after tanks rolled over the border—to no avail.

(AFP)