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26. Article IX of the Genocide Convention reads as follows:
“Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.”
27. Ukraine and the Russian Federation are both parties to the Genocide Convention. Ukraine deposited its instrument of ratification on 15 November 1954 with a reservation to Article IX of the Convention; on 20 April 1989, the depositary received notification that this reservation had been withdrawn. The Russian Federation is a party to the Genocide Convention as the State continuing the legal personality of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which deposited its instrument of ratification on 3 May 1954 with a reservation to Article IX of the Convention; on 8 March 1989, the depositary received notification that this reservation had been withdrawn.
2. Existence of a dispute relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the Genocide Convention
28. Article IX of the Genocide Convention makes the Court’s jurisdiction conditional on the existence of a dispute relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the Convention. According to the established case law of the Court, a dispute is “a disagreement on a point of law or fact, a conflict of legal views or of interests” between parties (Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions, Judgment No. 2, 1924, P.C.I.J., Series A, No. 2, p. 11). In order for a dispute to exist, “[i]t must be shown that the claim of one party is positively opposed by the other” (South West Africa (Ethiopia v. South Africa; Liberia v. South Africa), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1962, p. 328). The two sides must “‘hold clearly opposite views concerning the question of the performance or non-performance of certain’ international obligations” (Alleged Violations of Sovereign Rights and Maritime Spaces in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v. Colombia), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2016 (I), p. 26, para. 50, citing Interpretation of Peace Treaties with Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, First Phase, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1950, p. 74). To determine whether a dispute exists in the present case, the Court cannot limit itself to noting that one of the Parties maintains that the Convention applies, while the other denies it (see Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Qatar v. United Arab Emirates), Provisional Measures, Order of 23 July 2018, I.C.J. Reports 2018 (II), p. 414, para. 18).
29. Since Ukraine has invoked as the basis of the Court’s jurisdiction the compromissory clause in an international convention, the Court must ascertain, at the present stage of the proceedings, whether it appears that the acts complained of by the Applicant are capable of falling within the scope of that convention ratione materiae (cf. Jadhav (India v. Pakistan), Provisional Measures, Order of 18 May 2017, I.C.J. Reports 2017, p. 239, para. 30).
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