Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

No: 10-683                                                                          01 August 2000

Press-Release:

The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria has instituted legal proceedings against the Russian Federation before the International Court of Justice in The Hague (the so-called World Court of the United Nations System) for violating every substantive provision of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article II of the Genocide Convention defines the international crime of "genocide" as follows:

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

 This is exactly what the Russian Federation and before it the former Soviet Union have done to the Chechen People.

For at least the past six decades, the Russian Federation and the former Soviet Union have ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, and economic campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial and religious group known as the Chechen People. Most recently, these facts have been documented by several major outside, independent, objective, reputable and prestigious international human rights institutions and organizations that have issued reports and statements condemning the criminal behaviour of the Russian Federation in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria: e.g.. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; Amnesty International; Amnesty International USA; Society for Threatened Peoples; Human Rights Watch; International Commission of Jurists; International Helsinki Federation; Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe; Physicians for Human Rights; Physicians for Global Survival; and the World Council of Churches, inter alia. Such extensive documentation has been included in ChRI's World Court Application for genocide against the Russian Federation.

In addition, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria simultaneously filed with the World Court a Request for an Indication of Provisional Measures of Protection against the Russian Federation. This is the international equivalent to a request for a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction against the Russian Federation. ChRI has asked the World Court to issue the following Order for injunctive relief against the Russian Federation:

1. The Government of the Russian Federation should immediately, in pursuance of its undertaking in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948, take all measures within its power to prevent commission of the crime of genocide.

2. The Government of the Russian Federation should in particular ensure that any military, paramilitary, police or irregular armed units which may be directed or supported by it, as well as any organizations and persons which may be subject to its control, direction or influence, do not commit any acts of genocide, of conspiracy to commit genocide, of direct and public incitement to commit genocide, or of complicity in genocide, whether directed against the Chechen population of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria or against any other national, ethnical, racial or religious group;

3. The Government of the Russian Federation should not take any action, and should ensure that no action is taken, which may aggravate or extend the existing dispute over the prevention or punishment of the crime of genocide, or render it more difficult of solution.

4. The Government of the Russian Federation should immediately negotiate in good faith with the Government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in order to settle the existing dispute over the prevention or punishment of the crime of genocide.

5. The Government of the Russian Federation should not take any action, and should ensure that no action is taken, which might prejudice the rights of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in respect of whatever Judgement the Court may render in this dispute over the prevention or punishment of the crime of genocide.

 In view of the present seriousness of both the genocidal military situation and the humanitarian catastrophe for ChRI and the Chechen People, ChRI requested an Emergency Hearing of the World Court on its claims for provisional measures of protection against the genocidal behaviour of the Russian Federation.

Pursuant to the Rules of the World Court, ChRI is entitled to nominate a Judge ad hoc to sit as a full-fledged Member of the Court for the purpose of these proceedings. With his consent, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria has nominated as the Judge ad hoc Richard Falk, the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University, U.S.A. Professor Falk is universally recognized as the most distinguished Professor of International Law in the world today.

The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria's World Court lawsuit for genocide against the Russian Federation will be conducted by the ChRI Attorney of Record, who can be contacted as follows:

Francis A. Boyle

Professor of International Law

Attorney of Record for the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Law Building

504 East Pennsylvania Avenue

Champaign, Illinois 61820

Phone: 217-333-7954

Fax: 217-244-1478

Signed:

Ilyas Akhmadov

Foreign Minister