The FINANCIAL — The UN's highest court is to start hearings in a bid by Georgia to end alleged rights abuses by Russia in the two countries' showdown over the rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will hear three days of argument in a Georgian application for interim protection against "ethnic cleansing" it accuses Russia of committing on Georgian territory.
Herald Tribune announces, Russia has not directly responded to Georgia's application to the U.N. court. But Moscow accused Georgia of crimes against humanity after its army launched a massive attack last month on South Ossetia, killing Russian peacekeepers and dozens of civilians.
"Basically, what the Russians are being asked to do is something that morally they should feel obliged to do anyway — to stop persecuting Georgians and stop their Ossetian and Abkhazian allies from persecuting Georgians," said Paul Reichler, an American lawyer on Georgia's legal team.
According to Reuters, last month Georgia filed a suit to demand that Russia withdraw troops and pay damages, alleging that Russia violated an anti-discrimination convention during three interventions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia from 1990 to August 2008.
Georgia claims more than 400,000 of its citizens, almost 10 percent of its population, have been forcibly driven from their homes since its declaration of independence in 1991 by a Russian-backed campaign of violence and intimidation.
It says about a third of these people were forced to flee from South Ossetia and Abkhazia when Russia invaded Georgia in August after Georgia tried to recapture South Ossetia by force, Reuters reports.
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