Russia must immediately suspend military operations in Ukraine, the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Wednesday, in The Hague. By a vote of 13 to two, with Vice-President Kirill Gevorgian of Russia and Judge Xue Hanqin of China dissenting, the ICJ ruled that Russia “shall immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February.”

The court’s ruling – the first such verdict handed down by the ‘world court’ since the Russian invasion began – is in response to a suit filed by Ukraine on 27 February, accusing Russia of manipulating the concept of genocide to justify its military aggression.

Today’s ruling of the International Court of Justice @CIJ_ICJ requiring the Russian Federation to “immediately suspend the military operations” in Ukraine fully reinforces my repeated appeals for peace.

This war must stop. https://t.co/BK1pwvmMUT
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 16, 2022

Although the ICJ’s verdicts are binding, news reports questioned whether Moscow would abide by the ruling, and the court has no direct means of enforcing them.

In a tweet shortly after the ruling, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that the majority decision “fully reinforces my repeated appeals for peace.“

Making the case

The Court begins by recalling that, on 26 February Ukraine filed an application against Russia concerning “a dispute” on the interpretation, application and fulfilment of the Genocide Convention.

Ukraine contended that having falsely claimed acts of genocide against the people of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, Russia declared and implemented a “special military operation” to prevent and punish the purported acts.

The ICJ asked Russia to immediately suspend its attacks and cease all military operations as they were based on Moscow’s stated purpose of preventing or punishing Ukraine for committing genocide.

The Court also noted that Russia had decided not to participate in oral proceedings and later, presented a document setting out its position that in this case, the Court lacks jurisdiction and requested it to “refrain from indicating provisional measures and to remove the case from its list.”

Meeting conditions

In delivering the ruling, President of the Court Joan Donoghue of the United States, outlined that the necessary conditions were met to give the ICJ the authority to indicate provisional measures, namely that the rights asserted by Ukraine are plausible and the condition of urgency was met in that acts causing irreparable prejudice can “occur at any moment.”

“Indeed, any military operation, in particular one on the scale carried out by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, inevitably causes loss of life, mental and bodily harm, and damage to property and to the environment,” said the ICJ President.

On behalf of the world court, she continued, “the civilian population affected by the present conflict is extremely vulnerable,” adding that Russia’s aggression has resulted in “numerous civilian deaths and injuries…significant material damage, including the destruction of buildings and infrastructure”.

“Attacks are ongoing and are creating increasingly difficult living conditions for the civilian population. Many persons have no access to the most basic foodstuffs, potable water, electricity, essential medicines or heating. A very large number of people are attempting to flee from the most affected cities under extremely insecure conditions,” she explained.

The judges were unanimous in their order that both parties refrain from any action that might “aggravate or extend the dispute…or make it more difficult to resolve.”

A summary of the order can be found here.

Almost one child per second in Ukraine is becoming a refugee of the war, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday, as the total number of people who have now fled the country since the Russian invasion began, passed three million. “We have now reached three million mark in terms of movements of people out of Ukraine to neighbouring countries. And among these people there are some 157,000 third-country nationals,” said Paul Dillon, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), speaking in Geneva.

More than 3 million people have fled #Ukraine because of the #war in the last 20 days.
? 150,000 people every day
? 6,250 people every hour
? 104 people every minute
? 2 people every second pic.twitter.com/wkPJoiJrwT

— IOM Ukraine (@IOMUkraine) March 15, 2022

Some 1.5 million children have now joined the exodus from Ukraine, at a rate of just under one per second, since the Russian invasion began on 24 February.

“Every day, over the past 20 days, in Ukraine more than 70,000 children have become refugees. That’s every minute, 55 children fleeing the country,” said James Elder, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Trafficking fears

Highlighting that nine in 10 of those fleeing unrelenting violence in Ukraine are women and children, Mr. Elder warned that youngsters are prey to traffickers, as they arrive in unfamiliar new surroundings.

“To give a sense of the border that I used to visit – the main border, Medyka,  Poland to Ukraine – it is scores of people standing around buses and minivans calling out names of capital cities – or at least it was a week ago – people getting onto those,” he said. “The vast, vast majority of course are people with wonderful intentions and great generosity, but there is no doubt given what we understand of trafficking in Europe, that that remains a very, very grave issue.”

The development follows a warning from the UN Secretary-General, who on Monday said that Russia’s military offensive against civilians was “reaching terrifying proportions”.

Mariupol horror

In Mariupol, humanitarians warned that the situation in the port city has deteriorated further, after further heavy Russian bombardment.

Hundreds of thousands of people are being “suffocated” by a lack of supplies and are unable to flee the city, besieged by Russian forces.  
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday described the situation as “dire and desperate”.

“The bottom line here is that hundreds of thousands of people remain without aid today,” said spokesperson Ewan Watson. “They are unable to leave the city today and they are essentially being suffocated in this city right now with no aid.”

Mr. Watson also confirmed that “some vehicles …were able to leave the city yesterday. The ICRC was not involved in that evacuation of people. But what I would say is that is really a drop in the ocean.”

Amid reports that families are being forced to gather water from streams and that fights have broken out over food, Mr. Watson urged the Ukrainian and Russian authorities to find a solution so that aid can reach the city’s people.

The ICRC spokesperson also announced that the Organization intended to evacuate people from the besieged northeastern city of Sumy on Tuesday, using 30 buses. © UNICEF/Viktor Moskaliuk

Lviv’s children’s hospital is catering to sick children, including children with cancer, who have have fled other regions in the country, seeking safety and treatment.

UN stepping up aid

Across the country, UN humanitarians are delivering lifesaving aid where they have access. But UNICEF’s Mr. Elder reported “indiscriminate attacks time and again on critical infrastructure, particularly water has been targeted.

“Anecdotally from those colleagues there, we know of families who are undoing all heaters to take water coolant out as a last resort, as something to drink.”

War in Ukraine risks seeing 90 per cent of the country “freefall into poverty” and extreme vulnerability, nearly three weeks since Russia invaded its neighbour, a new UN reportsaid on Wednesday. UNDP warned that if the conflict drags on – and if more support to the country is not forthcoming quickly – it could wreck almost two decades of economic progress.

In addition to dire development setbacks, the UN agency explained that the environment is expected to suffer, while societal inequalities are likely increase.

Peace call

To help prevent these shocks and protect hard-won development gains, “we need peace now”, said UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner.

He insisted that among the agency’s primary objectives, UNDP was working to sustain “critical governance structures and services, which constitute the bedrock of all societies”.

He added: “The war in Ukraine is causing unimaginable human suffering with a tragic loss of life and the displacement of millions…An alarming economic decline, and the suffering and hardship it will bring to an already traumatised population must now come into sharper focus. There is still time to halt this grim trajectory.”

Early UN estimates indicate that nearly three in 10 people in Ukraine need life-saving humanitarian assistance. Based on the current direction of the fighting, 18 million people will likely become affected, and more than seven million may have to flee their homes.

Businesses shuttered

One in two Ukrainian businesses have shut down completely, while the other half has been forced to operate well below capacity, UNDP reported.

As one of the largest UN agencies on the ground in Ukraine, priorities include immediate crisis response and maintaining core government functions to ensure that public services can be maintained.

In a statement, UNDP noted that staff have remained operational throughout the conflict and that their presence has been bolstered with “targeted” deployments in key areas, such as debris management, damage assessment and emergency livelihood support, including cash-based assistance.

Daily help

Initial estimates are that $250 million per month in funding will be needed to cover partial income losses for 2.6 million people who are expected to fall into poverty.

Providing the most vulnerable with a basic income of $5.50 per day would cost $430 million a month, UNDP said.

Ukraine’s neighbours who have struggled to cope with the more than three million refugees created also need help, the UN agency said.

To that end, UNDP is already working with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, on resilience and development measures for those displaced by the violence, focusing on support to refugees and host communities through income generation and employment.

Rising civilian toll

Latest confirmed civilian casualty figures from the UN rights office, OHCHR, note that since the Russia’s all-out o against Ukraine started on 24 February, there have been 1,834 civilian casualties in the country – 691 killed and 1,143 injured. The actual figures – hampered by an inability to confirm numbers due to the fighting – are likely to be much higher, UN agencies warn.

Seven girls and 11 boys were among the dead, who also included 135 men and 99 women; a further 30 children and 409 adults also died, but their sex has not been established.

In eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, there have been 751 casualties (173 killed and 578 injured), and in Government-controlled territory, 582 casualties (134 killed and 448 injured).

In territory controlled by the self-proclaimed “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, beyond the contact line, the UN rights office has recorded 169 casualties (39 killed and 130 injured).

In other regions of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv and Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions), which were under Government control when the casualties occurred, there have been 1,083 recorded victims (518 killed and 565 injured) up to 14 March.