In accordance with Article 63 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the French Republic has filed an application for interference in the Ukraine v. Russia case, in which the latter is accused of committing genocide of the Ukrainian people during a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"Pursuant to Article 63 of the Statute, whenever the construction of a convention to which States other than those concerned in the case are parties is in question, each of these States has the right to intervene in the proceedings. In this case, the construction given by the judgment of the Court will be equally binding upon them," according to a message of the UN ICJ, made public on Wednesday.

In its declaration of intervention, France emphasizes that, as a party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, it "considers it necessary to avail itself of its right to intervene in the present case, particularly in view of the special nature of the Convention ... in which 'the contracting States do not have any interests of their own [and] merely have, one and all, a common interest, namely, the accomplishment of those high purposes which are the raison d’être of the convention."

"In accordance with Article 83 of the Rules of Court, Ukraine and the Russian Federation have been invited to furnish written observations on France’s declaration of intervention," the Court said.