THE HAGUE: The International Court of Justice has accepted requests from 32 countries to back Ukraine in a genocide case against Russia, the United Nations’ highest court said Friday.

It’s the largest number of countries to join another nation’s complaint at the world court based in The Hague, Netherlands.

Ukraine’s government filed the legally creative case days after Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022. The Kremlin snubbed hearings held the next month, while protesters holding Ukrainian flags chanted anti war slogans outside the court building’s gates.

Latvia was the first country to intervene in the complaint, which alleges Russia violated the 1948 Genocide Convention by falsely accusing Ukraine of committing genocide in its eastern Luhansk

and Donetsk regions, and using that as a pretext for the invasion.

A record 33 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia and every European Union member nation except Hungary requested to participate on Ukraine’s side in the case. However, the UN court’s judges rejected the US request on a technicality.

“The court concludes that the declarations of intervention filed in this case, except for the declaration submitted by the United States, are admissible,” they said.

Any country that has signed the post-World War II treaty criminalizing genocide is allowed to file for intervention in cases brought under the accord. The United States did not accept part of the Genocide Convention when it signed the treaty, so the judges determined the country wasn’t entitled to participate.