Covington Secures Crucial Victory In Case Before the World Court Relating to Russia's Full Scale Invasion of Ukraine

Covington Secures Crucial Victory In Case Before the World Court Relating to Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine

February 2, 2024

Washington—Covington has secured an important victory for Ukraine in proceedings against the Russian Federation before the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) — the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.

Ukraine’s case concerns Russia’s use of false allegations of genocide against Ukraine to justify the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia launched on 24 February 2022, as well as its recognition of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics three days earlier on 21 February 2022. Ukraine seeks a declaration from the Court establishing that Russia’s allegation of genocide — the pretext given by Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion itself — is false.

Following a two-week long hearing last September at the Peace Palace in The Hague, where Ukraine’s position was supported by an historic intervention of 32 States, the Court issued a judgment on 2 February 2024 rejecting Russia’s request for the case to be dismissed as outside the Court’s jurisdiction or inadmissible in its entirety. The Court upheld jurisdiction over Ukraine’s request that the Court declare that it is not responsible for committing genocide as alleged by Russia, which the Court confirmed was Russia’s stated purpose for its full-scale invasion. Although the Court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over one of Ukraine’s claims concerning Russia’s abuse of the Genocide Convention, today’s judgment means that the Court will hear on the merits Ukraine’s claim concerning Russia’s justification for aggression: that, since 2014, Russia has falsely accused Ukraine of committing genocide against its own people in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

“Ukraine launched this case just two days after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022,” said Covington partner Marney Cheek, counsel for Ukraine and co-chair of Covington’s International Disputes Practice. “Today the Court rejected Russia’s efforts to dismiss Ukraine’s case. Instead the case will proceed, and Ukraine will expose the fact that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was predicated on a lie.”

“By rejecting Russia’s effort to shield its false claims from scrutiny, the Court has cleared the way for Ukraine to demonstrate on the merits that Russia’s stated justification for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine was baseless,” explained partner David Zionts, counsel for Ukraine.

Today’s victory builds upon Covington’s success in securing an historic provisional measures order from the Court on 16 March 2022 in which the Court ordered Russia to “immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine.” Significantly, as a result of today’s ruling upholding the Court’s jurisdiction, the Provisional Measures Order remains in place.

“By continuing its military operations on Ukrainian territory, Russia has brazenly violated the Court’s binding Provisional Measures Order from the moment it was issued,” said partner Jonathan Gimblett, counsel for Ukraine. “This constitutes an independent violation of international law for which Ukraine intends to hold Russia fully to account in the merits phase of these proceedings.”

The Covington team representing Ukraine is led by partners Marney Cheek, Jonathan Gimblett, and David Zionts, together with associates Volodymyr Shkilevych, Paris Aboro, Paul Strauch, *Jill Warnock and Gaby Vasquez, staff attorney Lilia Ostapenko, and paralegals Ambria Davis-Alexander, Caroline Ennis and Liam Tormey. Covington represents Ukraine in partnership with Professor Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School and Professor Jean-Marc Thouvenin of Paris-Nanterre University.

The full text of the ICJ’s Judgment can be found at Judgement of 2 February 2024 (icj-cij.org).

* no longer with Covington.