Hearings on Case Ukraine against Russia on Crimea and Donbas Begin at UN ICC

The UN International Court of Justice has begun hearings as part of the substantive consideration of Ukraine's lawsuit against Russia for violations of two UN conventions, which Ukraine filed in 2017.

As reported by the correspondent of "European Pravda" in The Hague, the case is about the "Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russian Federation)."

On June 6, the first round of hearings began at the Peace Palace in The Hague, with the Ukrainian side presenting their arguments. Two three-hour sessions are scheduled.

The Russian side will present its arguments on Thursday, June 8.

The second round will take place on June 12 and 14, respectively.

The Ukrainian delegation is headed by Anton Korynevych, the Ambassador at Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chief Representative of Ukraine in matters related to the international legal prosecution of Russia. His deputy is Oksana Zolotarovа, the Director of the Department of International Law of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

On January 16, 2017, a representative of Ukraine filed a lawsuit for violating the first convention by arming groups of its puppet "republics" in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and violating the second convention through its policies towards non-Russian ethnic groups in occupied Crimea.

In April 2017, the UN International Court of Justice issued an interim order against the Russian Federation to allow Crimean Tatar Mejlis' activities and ensure accessibility to education in the Ukrainian language.

In November 2019, the Court rejected all of Russia's arguments regarding the Court's jurisdiction and the admissibility of the case, which was a complete victory for Ukraine at that stage of the proceedings.