The ICJ will rule on Ukraine's alleged Genocide in Donbas

Oh, what a tangled mess the West got themselves into

Photo by Tina Hartung on Unsplash

(I apologise that this is delayed by about 6 weeks but I had to write about it because simply put, very few people seem to know about it, let alone understand what happened!)

Because Western states are a bunch of genocidal sh*tbags and the majority of their populations no more intellectually in-tune than grazing sheep, there’s not a single person shouting, “Free Ukraine!” and decrying “madman Putin” who has a clue why Putin began his war. They may throw around the word, ‘NATO’ here and there but not one of them has a clue what NATO is or what NATO does.

One particularly interesting conversation I had was in the Cotswolds a couple of years ago. My friends and I were in a bike shop, just about to embark on a day of cycling. Chatting away about something, the shopkeeper eavesdropped and heard that I had Pakistani heritage. “Oh, I don’t like Imran Khan,” she suddenly said to me.

“Why not?” I asked, wondering why Imran Khan was being mentioned at all.

“Because he doesn’t support Ukraine.”

“He said that did he?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Well, he supports Russia.”

“Does he? When did he say that?”

“Well, he doesn’t say Putin is bad.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean he supports war, or Russia’s position on it.”

“Well, Putin is bad.”

“I agree. Why did he go to war with Ukraine by the way?”

“Well, because he’s mad of course.”

“I see. Any other reason?”

“Well, he’s crazy, isn’t he? The Russians are crazy.”

I have to say that that was one of the more intellectual conversations I have had on the Russia-Ukraine war.

Just a quick note for all those hating on Imran Khan. He refused to follow orders by the West to denounce Putin, refusing to be drawn into America’s proxy war. Instead, he called for Muslim States and China “to mediate, try to bring about a ceasefire and an end to the conflict.” Imran wanted to end the war with a diplomatic solution and not with bloodshed and murder, which is the polar opposite of what the bloodthirsty West and their military complex wanted. This made the US and the EU irascible and their populations bleating inanities. It also meant the US made ‘a call’ to Pakistani officials to get rid of Imran and ‘all would be forgiven.’ Imran is now in prison on clearly bullsh*t charges because that’s the way to get a massively popular PM out of the way to make way for US puppets. Even from prison, Imran won the general election though he has been banned from taking office. And lo and behold, with Imran away, the US-puppet charlatans send Pakistani ammo Ukraine’s way!

Unbeknownst to most Brits I meet, Ukraine has been fighting a war since 2014 in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. This conflict is between Ukrainian armed forces and forces linked to two entities that refer to themselves as the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LPR). This war is still ongoing.

The official reason that Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, - and no one on the streets of Britain seems to know – is his claim that Russian-speaking people in the Donbas region of Ukraine had been “subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime”.

That’s right, Russia accused Ukraine of genocide. This was its pretext for war.

As we all now know – (because out of the entire world, the Houthis and Yemen are the only ones observing it without a shadow of any doubt) - the very first Article of the Genocide Convention states:

Article I

The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

If Russia was correct, therefore, like the Houthis, they would be acting within the Genocide Convention.

Ukraine was not having any of it and brought a case to the ICJ claiming Russia was wrong about genocide. It asked the ICJ to:

“Adjudge and declare that the Russian Federation cannot lawfully take any action under the Genocide Convention in or against Ukraine aimed at preventing or punishing an alleged genocide, on the basis of its false claims of genocide in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine.”

Almost every Western state – 32 of them in total – applied to the ICJ to intervene in these proceedings on Ukraine’s side. The ICJ said yes. As if you need any further proof of the fact that this is the West’s proxy war.

The case at the ICJ is thus:

The whole of the West v Russia

The first hearing of this case was a preliminary hearing. It means the ICJ hears matters relating to the case before actually delving into the substantive case itself when evidence will be presented. The matter for this particular preliminary hearing was whether the ICJ actually had jurisdiction over this case, something Ukraine said they did but Russia said they did not.

The ICJ produced their judgment of this hearing on 2^nd Feb this year. In response, the BBC came out with this headline:

UN top court can rule on Ukraine case against Russia - BBC News

Go on, tell me, what does this headline tell you? What images does it create? Because to me it sounds like Ukraine won a significant victory in the ICJ and is ready to plough ahead in its accusations against Russia.

If you think the Palestinian headlines have been deplorably misleading, the above really won’t shock you. The same misleading headlines were shared by other mainstream media (MSM) like the Huffington Post, whose actual article is equally bizarre, and not what the ICJ said at all:

World Court Rules Ukraine Can Go Ahead With Genocide Case Against Russia

ICJ Ruling

So, what actually happened?

Let’s summarise it fully.

As above, shortly after Russia’s invasion, Ukraine did indeed file a case with the ICJ, “emphatically denying” that they were committing genocide and arguing that Russia’s use of genocide as a pretext for invasion went against the Genocide Convention because the claims of genocide were false.

Russia’s counter-claim was that the ICJ did not have jurisdiction over the case.

This formed the preliminary hearing that the ICJ has ruled on and the MSM reported on, as above.

So, what was that judgment?

The ICJ ruled that it did have jurisdiction over the case, dismissing all of Russia’s claims over jurisdiction.

But it also dismissed in entirety that it had any jurisdiction to rule on the claim made by Ukraine that Russia violated the Genocide convention by ‘abusing it’ as the allegation of genocide they made was false. As the ICJ summarised:

“Ukraine does not claim that the Russian Federation refrained from taking any measure to prevent a genocide or to punish persons who had committed such a genocide. On the contrary, the Applicant claims that the genocide invoked by the Russian Federation did not occur and the allegation was made in bad faith. The purpose of the first aspect of Ukraine’s legal action is to request a finding by the Court that there is no credible evidence that it has committed any such genocide (see Part III of the present Judgment above). In these circumstances, it is difficult to see how the conduct of the Russian Federation complained of by Ukraine could constitute a violation, by the Respondent, of its obligations to prevent genocide and punish the perpetrators.”

They went on to say:

“It is no more convincing to argue that the Respondent’s conduct amounts to an “abuse of right” or, as Ukraine sometimes put it, an “abuse of the Convention”. It is certainly not consistent with the principle of good faith to invoke a treaty abusively, by claiming that there is a specific situation falling within its scope when it is clearly not the case, or by deliberately interpreting the treaty incorrectly for the sole purpose of justifying a given action. However, while such an abusive invocation will result in the dismissal of the arguments based thereon, it does not follow that, by itself, it constitutes a breach of the treaty. In the present case, even if it were shown that the Russian Federation had invoked the Convention abusively (which is not established at this stage), it would not follow that it had violated its obligations under the Convention, and in particular that it had disregarded the obligations of prevention and punishment under Articles I and IV.

As regards the Applicant’s argument that the actions undertaken by the Russian Federation on the basis of its false allegation of genocide go beyond the limits of international law, this raises questions that, in the opinion of the Court, do not fall within the scope ratione materiae of the Convention.”

In summary, the ICJ is saying in their judgment:

1)      Even if Ukraine is right and Russia’s claims of genocide are false, it does not mean their actions would constitute a violation of their obligations under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention (it’s a wording thing). Sure, it wouldn’t be good if they had false-flagged genocide and then invaded, but those actions would fall under other international law and not under the Genocide Convention itself. As such, the ICJ has no jurisdiction over this claim. In other words, they will not address whether Russia violated the Genocide Convention by using what Ukraine says were false genocide charges as a pretext for the war, even if the invasion may have violated international law broadly. Ukraine’s application on this point is completely dismissed.

2)      The allegations of genocide against Ukraine – and Ukraine’s claims that it is a false claim – are to be determined in the substantive hearing.

And so, the ICJ did indeed rule to go ahead with the ‘genocide case’ - but not against Russia. The only genocide it will be ruling on is Ukraine’s.

The central question for the actual ICJ substantive hearing that Ukraine brought against Russia will not be Russia’s conduct in invoking the Genocide convention, but rather is Ukraine committing genocide?

Rather than a win, this is a huge slap in the face of Ukraine and its Western armourers and masters. Ukraine brought a case to hammer Russia over the head with, but instead finds itself in the dock for genocide. That’s what one would call an EPIC backfire.

And this isn’t the first backfire Ukraine has suffered this year. In January, the ICJ rejected Ukraine’s claims of terrorism against Russia, including dismissing all its calls for compensation. Though it did give Russia a few slaps on the wrist and told them to follow international treaties, not a single finding of terrorism was made.

These ICJ rulings paint a sharp contrast to the endless anti-Russia propaganda that we are subjected to.

The ICJ has no mechanism to enforce its binding judgments, and its judges do come under considerable political pressure. Despite this, it has striven as a collective, to base its judgements and orders on the evidence presented. This year alone it has:

• Ruled that there is plausible genocide in Palestine committed by the State of Israel, something so blatant even a blind man can see it.

• Ruled earlier this year that Russia is not committing terrorism in Ukraine, dismissing all of Ukraine’s allegations that they are.

• Ruled it needs to examine the case of genocide against the Ukraine.

Maybe Tik Tok won’t be the only thing genocidal Joe will ban this year.