The Empire Strikes Back: Russia’s Procedural Offensive Before International Courts and Tribunals

Within the quick aftermath of the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, Ukraine and its allies turned to worldwide adjudication with outstanding pace and depth. This early authorized mobilisation enabled Ukraine to grab the authorized narrative surrounding the battle, ‘utilizing its smart-power property in a case the place there’s a hard-power drawback and the rule of legislation is on their aspect’. Practically 4 years later, nonetheless, the litigation panorama seems to be markedly totally different. Whereas the preliminary part was characterised by Russia’s relative disengagement, latest developments recommend a shift in direction of lively and more and more aggressive procedural participation. Moderately than remaining absent, the Russian Federation has begun to deploy procedural instruments in an effort to delay proceedings and reframe disputes in ways in which advance its strategic pursuits.

This put up examines that procedural flip. Specializing in inter-State proceedings, it highlights three latest developments that exemplify Russia’s rising strategy to worldwide adjudication.

Preliminary Tactical Initiative 

Inside two days of the invasion, Ukraine instituted proceedings earlier than the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice in a comparatively uncommon ‘reverse genocide case’ (Utility of 26 February 2022). Performing with outstanding pace, the ICJ indicated on 16 March 2022 provisional measures (Order of 16 March 2022), ordering the Russian Federation to ‘instantly droop the army operations’ within the territory of Ukraine. Later in 2022, in an unprecedented transfer aimed toward supporting Ukraine’s place and exerting stress on the Courtroom, thirty-three States filed declarations of intervention below Article 63(2) of the ICJ Statute, with virtually all of them discovered admissible (Order of 5 June 2023). Past its doctrinal novelty, the case served to grab the authorized narrative surrounding the invasion at its earliest stage.

Equally, the jurisdiction of the Worldwide Prison Courtroom was triggered with hanging rapidity. On 1 March 2022, Lithuania referred the scenario in Ukraine to the Workplace of ICC Prosecutor below Article 14 of the Rome Statute, adopted shortly by a joint referral of 38 extra State Events. The following day, the ICC Prosecutor introduced the opening of an investigation, which led, on 17 March 2023, to the issuance of two warrants of arrest in opposition to President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova. To this point, six warrants have been issued. The ensuing prosecutions not solely constrained the diplomatic mobility of senior Russian officers and army commanders (Platt), but additionally generated spillover results within the type of proceedings in opposition to States Events alleged to have didn’t execute arrest and give up obligations (Mongolia, Tajikistan). On this sense, ICC proceedings operate not solely as devices of worldwide legal justice, but additionally as instruments of strategic constraint.

On the European Courtroom of Human Rights, Ukraine lodged an inter-State software in opposition to the Russian Federation on 28 February 2022 (Utility no. 11055/22, Ukraine v. Russia (X)), alleging mass and gross human-rights violations dedicated in the middle of Russian army operations. The proceedings had been later joined with Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia and twenty-six Member States had been granted go away to intervene. These inter-State proceedings are accompanied by numerous particular person functions, totalling 9,264 as of February 2025. 

The preliminary Russian response, significantly in 2022 and 2023, was largely passive and in step with a standard coverage of non-appearance. Earlier than the ECHR, for instance, Russia neither participated within the proceedings nor nominated its representatives (¶¶ 27 & 182, Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia). Equally, it refused to seem within the ICJ proceedings regarding provisional measures (Mégret). 

However, this strategy has begun to alter in latest months. Russia has opted to have interaction extra actively in ongoing proceedings, pursuing accessible authorized devices to additional its pursuits, delay adjudication, and assume higher management over the narrative inside worldwide judicial fora. This shift alerts a extra assertive strategy, characterised by procedurally aggressive techniques and, in a number of cases, unprecedented measures, together with:

1. challenges to arbitrators in UNCLOS arbitration,

2. submitting the attraction from the ICAO Council determination within the ICJ, and

3. hijacking the Allegations of Genocide case earlier than the ICJ.

Profitable challenges in opposition to arbitrators

The arbitration in Detention of Ukrainian Naval Vessels and Servicemen was instituted by Ukraine on 1 April 2019 , following the 2018 detention by Russia of three naval vessels and 24 servicemen. On 27 June 2022, the tribunal – composed of Professor McRae (President), Judges Eiriksson, Wolfrum, Golitsyn, and Greenwood – issued its Award on Preliminary Objections, confirming its jurisdiction over the dispute topic to minor limitations. 

On 17 October 2023, the Russian Federation raised challenges to the impartiality of Professor McRae and Decide Wolfrum, primarily based on their votes in favour of the Institute de Droit Worldwide’s Declaration on Aggression in Ukraine of 1 March 2022. In an unprecedented Resolution on 6 March 2024, the  majority of  unchallenged arbitrators – Judges Eiriksson and Vylegzhanin – upheld the challenges, discovering that justifiable doubts existed as to the impartiality of McRae and Wolfrum. In a robust dissent, Sir Greenwood emphasised that “the IDI Declaration addressed totally different occasions, occurring later in time, and of a basically totally different character from these with which the Tribunal is anxious” (¶ 10). He additional famous that Russia had participated in different worldwide proceedings involving eight arbitrators who had been additionally members of the IDI, with out elevating comparable objections, and had even retained Professor Bing Bing Jia – himself an IDI member – as counsel. 

The events had been unable to agree on the process for appointing substitute arbitrators. In response, Russia requested the tribunal to rule on the matter, in what gave the impression to be an try and delay the appointment by the ITLOS President. In Procedural Order No. 9 of 12 July 2024, the tribunal rejected the request, not directly holding that Article 3 (e) and (f) of Annex II utilized to conditions of removing or disqualification. The President of ITLOS subsequently proceeded to nominate substitute arbitrators, together with Decide Kateka.

Constructing on its earlier procedural success, Russia then challenged the impartiality of Decide Kateka, citing his affiliation with the IDI Declaration, however his abstention from the vote, his social media exercise, and his participation in provisional measures proceedings in respect of the arbitration earlier than ITLOS. This time the tribunal rejected the problem, albeit with a robust dissent of Decide Vylegzhanin. Notably, the dissent known as consideration to the broader situation of whether or not ITLOS judges ought to abstain from arbitral proceedings that overlap with issues beforehand examined of their judicial capability (¶ 48).

Most lately, the tribunal was pressured to postpone the deserves listening to scheduled for 8-9 January 2026 following the late withdrawal of the Russian arbitrator, Decide Vylegzhanin, on well being grounds. 

These developments in Detention of Ukrainian Naval Vessels and Servicemen illustrate a marked shift in Russia’s litigation technique. After an initially inactive posture, Russia adopted aggressive procedural techniques aimed on the structure and composition of the tribunal, in search of each to delay the proceedings and to domesticate a story of bias. These techniques proved partially profitable: two distinguished figures had been disqualified and, following the latest withdrawal, the tribunal’s composition stays unsettled. Importantly, profitable challenges to arbitrators in inter-State arbitration are nearly with out precedent, underscoring the distinctive nature of this episode.

ICAO Enchantment earlier than the ICJ 

On 12 Might 2025, the Council of the Worldwide Civil Aviation Group (ICAO) made its first-ever dedication on the deserves of a dispute between Member States below Article 84 of the Chicago Conference. Upon the claims introduced by Australia and the Netherlands, the Council discovered that Russia had didn’t adjust to its obligation below Article 3bis of the Conference in relation to the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airways flight MH17 (Woodworth). Considerably, the choice addressed the problem of reparation and urged the events to enter into negotiations ‘expeditiously’ (determination accessible right here).

On 18 September 2025, Russia responded by submitting an attraction earlier than the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice pursuant to Article 84 of the Chicago Conference. This marked the primary event on which Russia had initiated proceedings earlier than the World Courtroom, however its earlier appearances as a respondent (7 occasions, together with because the USSR). Whereas the attraction alleges errors in legislation and in reality, its central thrust lies in claims that the ICAO Council basically violated necessities of due course of and truthful process (¶ 5). By contesting the choice on these grounds, Russia seeks not merely to delay its authorized penalties, however to recast the dispute as one regarding the equity and legitimacy of the method itself.

Enchantment from the ICAO Council was entered onto the ICJ’s Normal Record below No. 201, and on 27 November 2025 the Courtroom mounted time-limits for the written pleadings. Even at this early stage, the attraction displays a broader sample in Russia’s latest engagement with worldwide adjudication: the strategic deployment of arguments to deflect consideration from substantive accountability and to problem institutional authority. On this respect, the ICAO attraction aligns with different cases of Russian procedural offensive, however the uncertainty surrounding its eventual consequence.

Hijacking Allegations of Genocide

Allegations of Genocide have already attracted in depth scholarly consideration (e.g. Papadaki, Milanovic). One facet nonetheless warrants explicit emphasis. Regardless of Ukraine’s modern jurisdictional technique and its success in securing provisional measures that remoted Russia at an early stage, the Russian procedural counteroffensive has considerably altered the trajectory of the case.

The ICJ’s Judgment on Preliminary Objections of February 2024, and much more so its latest Order of 5 December 2025 discovering Russia’s counterclaim admissible (Schneider), have shifted the main focus of the proceedings away from the illegality of the invasion in direction of allegations of genocide and associated conduct attributed to Ukrainian authorities. Ukraine is now required not solely to disprove the alleged genocidal acts, however to defend itself in opposition to detailed accusations (Weller) of try, complicity, conspiracy, incitement, and failure to stop, examine and punish.

Russia additionally seizes the evidentiary initiative, as in its counter-memorial, which was accompanied by hundreds of pages of annexed paperwork, ca. 300 witness statements, and quite a few knowledgeable experiences (pardon the propaganda within the hyperlink). In a context characterised by the issue of ‘proving a damaging’ and uncertainty relating to the allocation of the burden of proof (see Declaration of Decide Tomka, ¶ 19, Marchuk), this procedural growth exemplifies how counterclaims can operate as devices of narrative and evidentiary technique.

Conclusion

These three developments sign a discernible Russian procedural counteroffensive and illustrate a change in its strategy to worldwide adjudication. After an preliminary interval of strategic disengagement, the Russian Federation has turned to lively participation in an effort to delay proceedings, contest institutional legitimacy, and reshape the narrative inside worldwide fora. These developments lend assist to the more and more evident proposition that, in modern inter-State disputes, engagement with worldwide courts is commonly extra advantageous than abstention (e.g. Tzeng). Procedural participation permits a respondent State not solely to safeguard its quick litigation pursuits, but additionally to affect the tempo, scope, and framing of proceedings. 

Whereas these procedural victories are unlikely, in themselves, to find out the final word consequence of the authorized disputes arising from the invasion of Ukraine, they nonetheless underscore the rising salience of procedural manoeuvring in modern battle. Additionally they elevate broader questions for worldwide courts and tribunals regarding the capability of present procedural frameworks to accommodate – or resist – the strategic use of process as a instrument of confrontation reasonably than adjudication.