Foley Hoag Representing Republic of Georgia in Emergency Hearing at International Court of Justice in September; Georgia Claims Violent Ethnic Cleansing by Russia and Its Militia Allies
Washington, D.C. - September 3, 2008
Hearing will air charges against Russia of campaign of ethnic cleansing during August 2008 invasion of Georgia, including murder, hostage-taking, deportations and destruction of villages during current conflict
Foley Hoag LLP is representing the Republic of Georgia in an emergency hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), scheduled for September 8-10, 2008, in which Georgia will argue that invading Russian forces and separatist militias they support have engaged in ethnic cleansing and other violent forms of discrimination against native Georgians.
Georgia filed suit against Russia on August 12 under the auspices of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (known as CERD), a 40-year-old treaty to which both Russia and Georgia are signatories.
Paul R. Reichler, a partner in Foley Hoag’s Washington, DC, office, will argue at the international court for Georgia. Mr. Reichler specializes in public international law, which governs relations among sovereign nations. He has argued international at the ICJ previously, and in front of international arbitral tribunals worldwide. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is located in The Hague, the Netherlands. It is composed of 15 judges from around the world. The U.S. is represented on the court by Judge Thomas Buergenthal.
Mr. Reichler’s co-counsel on the Georgia case are Dr. Payam Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University, in Montreal; and Prof. Dr. James Crawford, a professor of public international law at Cambridge University.
Georgia’s application to the International Court of Justice seeks a ruling that Russia has breached its obligations under CERD by engaging in and supporting acts of ethnic cleansing against Georgians, both during the recent international conflict that began with Russia’s invasion of Georgia on Auguts 8 and stretches back to the 1990s, when Georgia first achieved its independence from the former Soviet Union.
At the September 8-10 hearings, Georgia will. seek an order from the court that Russia immediately cease all violence against ethnic Georgians and others, that it stop forcibly expelling them from their homes and villages, that it release all civilian hostages and detainees, that it stop burning and looting Georgian homes and businesses, and that it permit all displaced persons to return to their homeland. All of these are rights guaranteed by CERD that Russia is obligated to respect.
Mr. Reichler said, “It is an honor to represent Georgia in this important case, which seeks to put an end to Bosnia-style ethnic cleansing that Russian and its allied separatist elements are currently carrying out on a daily basis against ethnic Georgians, threatening their lives and burning their homes and villages. The Court’s urgent intervention is needed to stop the pogroms and save human lives.”
Georgia, a former republic of the USSR, includes two regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where separatist forces opposed to Georgian rule have enjoyed Russian support since Georgia became independent in 1991. Georgia’s suit at the ICJ alleges a more than 15-year Russian campaign of aiding and abetting, as well as participating in, acts of ethnic discrimination against Georgians that range from outright murder of Georgian civilians to kidnapping, forced deportation, destruction of Georgian villages, and the prevention of displaced Georgians from returning to their homes.
In the 1990s, some 300,000 Georgians were forcibly removed from their homes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia by separatists as part of a Russian-supported effort to ethnically “purify” those regions. In the last several weeks another 128,000 Georgians have become refugees in the wake of the Russian invasion on August 8, meaning nearly 10 percent of the country’s population is made up of Internally Displaced Persons.
Georgia claims, in documents filed with the ICJ, that “Since 8 August, Russian forces acting in concert with South Ossetian separatist militia and mercenaries, have engaged in widespread and systematic discriminatory acts against Georgians on grounds of their ethnicity, including the murder of civilians, the taking and mistreatment of hostages, and the plunder and destruction of homes and other civilian property…
“In Abkhazia, ethnic Georgian villages in the Kodori Gorge have been destroyed by Russian forces and their estimated population of 3,000 has been displaced... Prior to the 8 August Russian invasion, this population was under pressure to assume Russian citizenship, under threats of expulsion and other punitive measures...
“Russian support and participation in the recent campaign of violence is aimed at permanent changes in the ethnic demography of territories to expand the authority of separatist forces…”
Signatories to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination pledge to eliminate all forms of racially and ethnically based discrimination and to provide “effective protection and remedies” against acts of discrimination.
Mr. Reichler is counsel in four other current cases before the International Court of Justice: He represents Ecuador in its suit against Colombia over the toxic effects in Ecuador of Colombia’s aerial spraying of coca plants on the Colombian side of their border; he represents Uruguay against Argentina over the construction of a paper mill on the banks of the Uruguay River; and he represents Nicaragua against Costa Rica over navigational rights on the San Juan River, and against Colombia in a dispute over their maritime boundary in the western Caribbean. Last year Mr. Reichler led the legal team that secured a victory for Guyana over Suriname in a maritime boundary delimitation case.
In addition to Mr. Reichler, Foley Hoag is represented on Georgia’s legal team by Lawrence H. Martin, a partner in the Washington, DC, office; Clara Brillembourg, an associate in that office; and Andrew B. Loewenstein, an associate in the firm’s Boston office.
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