The International Court of Justice (ICJ) of the United Nations announced on Tuesday March 1 the holding of hearings on March 7 and 8 following a request filed by Kiev, which accuses Moscow of planning a genocide in Ukraine.
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Created in 1946, this judicial body of the United Nations aims to settle disputes between States. While its judgments are binding and without appeal, the Court has no way of enforcing them.
Emergency precautionary measures
The International Court of Justice had been seized on Saturday February 26 of a request by Kiev, which ensures that Russia kills people of Ukrainian nationality intentionally and seriously harms their physical integrity. In its request, Ukraine asks the ICJ to intervene by imposing provisional, so-called emergency measures, before considering the merits of the case.
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Judge Joan Donoghue, president of the ICJ, on Tuesday sent a “urgent communication” to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, “with a copy to the Government of Ukraine”, the court said. In this communication, she called for “the attention of the Russian Federation to the need to act in such a way that any order of the Court on (…) the indication of provisional measures can have the desired effects”.