Russia and Georgia appeared in court today in a dispute over whether the United Nations' highest court can hear charges of human rights abuses by Kremlin forces.
The hearing is the latest step in a case that dates to August 2008, when Georgia filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice, claiming violations by Russia of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination on Georgian territory.
Georgia alleged violations of various articles of the treaty over an 18-year period in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The case was filed as the two countries fought a short war over South Ossetia, although Georgia denied the case was directly linked to the conflict.
But the head of legal affairs at Russia's foreign ministry, representing his country in court at the Peace Palace in The Hague, said in opening statements the case was only about the war and not about the treaty.
"It must be emphasised that the application was only launched when it became clear that Georgia's military venture had failed," Kirill Gevorgian said. "The other objective of the applicant state was to portray itself as a victim of the conflict that it itself had started."
Russian troops crushed an assault by Georgian government forces on South Ossetia in August 2008, inflicting heavy damage on the Georgian military. Moscow has since recognised the two areas as independent states, although almost no other countries have followed suit.
Representatives of the Georgian legal team declined to respond to the Russian case in detail, preferring to make their reply formally in court tomorrow.
"Georgia has great confidence in the International Court of Justice," said Tina Burjaliani, the country's deputy justice minister, in a brief news conference after today's hearing. "Georgia has very strong arguments against Russia's assertions."
In October 2008, the court issued a preliminary ruling, ordering Moscow and Tbilisi to refrain from committing or supporting any racial discrimination in the disputed regions or in nearby Georgian territory.
In December 2009, Russia filed an objection to the court's jurisdiction, freezing the case and setting in motion the legal back-and-forth that prompted this week's hearings.
Moscow argues the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case because there was no ongoing dispute between the two countries under the treaty before the case was filed, as the convention explicitly requires.
"As of the date when the application was filed there was no dispute between Georgia and Russia over ethnic discrimination against the ethnic Georgian population of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Roman Kolodkin, Russia's ambassador to the Netherlands, told the court.
In a complicated set of arguments lasting more than two hours, Russia's lawyers dissected the language of the treaty and argued that a series of interactions, speeches, public statements and other events did not constitute a dispute or a negotiation between the two sides.
"For there to be a dispute with Russia, that dispute can only crystalise from a claim asserted against Russia and disputed with Russia," British lawyer Samuel Wordsworth said.
"It must be for Georgia to make and communicate a claim, not for Russia to go out and seek it."
Reuters