Legal News

Georgia Sues Russia

By Dan Slater

All week we’ve been looking for a legal angle on the war between Russia and Georgia. But aside from a short list of law firms in Tbilisi, including DLA Piper and BGI Legal, we couldn’t come up with much.

Now, at least, there’s a lawsuit. The Georgian security council filed a suit against Russia in the International Court of Justice for alleged ethnic cleansing. According to the AP, Georgia is asking the court to order Russia to cease all military action and withdraw its forces from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, to enable hundreds of thousands of displaced ethnic Georgians to return home, and to pay Georgia unspecified compensation. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has accused Russian military forces of cleansing the breakaway province Abkhazia of ethnic Georgians. Here’s a story from the AP, and here’s a press release about the suit from the ICJ.

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev, meanwhile, reiterated accusations that Georgia committed “genocide” by launching an offensive last week to try to retake control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

A spokeswoman for the Russian General Prosecutor’s office said Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili could be prosecuted in Russia for committing crimes against Russia’s interests.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 14, 2008 (boomark / email).