Originally published 2022-03-23.
The image above recalls the scene at The Hague as Judge Joan Donoghue, then President of the court, read out the order; the original news photograph of that moment was taken by Piroschka van de Wouw for Reuters.
On 16 March 2022, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal court of the United Nations, ordered Russia to immediately suspend the military operations it had launched in Ukraine on 24 February. The judges voted 13 to 2, with only the Russian and Chinese judges dissenting. The court also said it had not seen evidence supporting Russia's claim that Ukraine was committing genocide against Russian speakers in the east. Russia rejected the order and the war continued.
Here is what the court decided, why it mattered legally even though it was ignored, and how the case has developed since.
What the court ordered
The order dealt with “provisional measures”, a kind of emergency injunction the ICJ can issue while a case is pending, to stop a situation getting worse before a final ruling. It contained three measures:
- Suspend operations: by 13 votes to 2, Russia was told to halt at once the military operations it began on 24 February 2022 in Ukraine.
- No support for others: also by 13 to 2, Russia was told to ensure that any military or irregular armed units it directed or supported took no steps to further those operations.
- No escalation: unanimously, both countries were told to avoid any action that could aggravate or extend the dispute.
Reading the order, Judge Donoghue said the court considered that Ukraine had a plausible right not to be subjected to Russia's military operations. The two dissenting votes came from Vice-President Kirill Gevorgian of Russia and Judge Xue Hanqin of China.
Why Ukraine used the Genocide Convention
The ICJ can only hear a case when both states have accepted its jurisdiction in some way. Russia has not accepted the court's general jurisdiction, so Ukraine needed a treaty that both countries had signed and that sends disputes to the ICJ. It chose the 1948 Genocide Convention.
The argument was clever. In the lead-up to the invasion, President Vladimir Putin claimed Russia needed to protect people in the Donbas from “genocide” by Ukraine. Ukraine, filing its case on 26 February 2022, asked the court to declare that no such genocide was taking place and that Russia could not lawfully use a false genocide claim as a reason to invade.
At the provisional stage, the court did not have to decide the whole case. But it noted that it had no evidence before it substantiating the claim of genocide on Ukrainian territory, and it questioned whether the Convention could ever authorise one state to use force against another to prevent genocide. That was a significant blow to the official Russian justification for the war.
Russia's response
Russia did not send a delegation to the hearing on 7 March 2022, submitting only a written statement arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction. After the order, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia could not take the decision into account and that both sides would have to agree for it to apply. Russian operations continued.
Ukraine's reaction was the opposite. President Volodymyr Zelensky described the order as a complete victory for Ukraine, stressed that it was binding under international law, and warned that ignoring it would isolate Russia further.
Is an ICJ order binding, and who enforces it?
Yes, ICJ provisional measures are legally binding on the states concerned; the court confirmed this in its 2001 LaGrand judgment. The difficulty is enforcement. The ICJ has no police or army. Under the UN Charter, a state can ask the Security Council to act if another state fails to comply with an ICJ judgment, but Russia is a permanent member of the Council and can veto any such resolution.
That does not make the order meaningless. It gives other states a formal legal finding to point to when imposing sanctions or supplying aid, it shapes diplomatic language, and it becomes part of the long-term legal record of the war. International lawyer Marko Milanović of the University of Nottingham argued at the time that by refusing to comply, Russia would suffer reputational damage, while Ukraine would be seen as a state relying on peaceful legal methods.
A common myth is that the ICJ is the same as the International Criminal Court (ICC). It is not. The ICJ settles disputes between states; the ICC prosecutes individuals for crimes such as war crimes. Both have been involved in cases arising from the war, but they are separate institutions.
How the case developed
The case became one of the largest in the court's history in terms of outside participation. In June 2023 the ICJ ruled on declarations of intervention from more than 30 states, most of them supporting Ukraine's reading of the Genocide Convention.
On 2 February 2024 the court ruled on Russia's preliminary objections. The result was mixed. The court found that it did have jurisdiction to decide Ukraine's request for a declaration that Ukraine had not breached the Genocide Convention, and that this request was admissible. However, it upheld Russia's objections to Ukraine's broader claims, including the argument that the invasion and the recognition of the separatist republics themselves violated the Convention. In other words, the case continued, but on a narrower question.
Since then the proceedings have moved on to the merits. According to the court's case page, Russia filed counter-claims, which the ICJ found admissible in December 2025, setting time limits for further written pleadings from both sides. A final judgment is still some way off.
The war in March 2022
When the order was issued, the war was in its fourth week. Russian forces were trying to encircle Kyiv and to besiege cities in the north, east and south, including Kharkiv and Mariupol, but the advance had slowed in the face of Ukrainian resistance. Casualty figures were heavily disputed: US officials estimated in mid-March that more than 7,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, while Ukraine claimed a much higher number. Neither figure could be independently verified.
Within days of the order, Russia announced it would refocus on the Donbas, and by early April its troops had pulled back from the Kyiv region, revealing evidence of atrocities in towns such as Bucha.
Sources: International Court of Justice: Allegations of Genocide (Ukraine v. Russian Federation), case page; Wikipedia: Ukraine v. Russian Federation (Genocide Convention case).
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