Moscow – Hague, 1 April 2011. The International Court of Justice in The Hague has dismissed the application filed by Georgia against Russia in a dispute regarding racial discrimination. Russian Federation was represented by Russian diplomats Kirill Gevorgian and Roman Kolodkin international law counsel Alain Pellet, Samuel Wordsworth and Andreas Zimmermann, and the Legal Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and EPAM.

On 12 August 2008 Georgia filed an application against the Russian Federation under the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Lawyers for the Russian Federation set out to prove that the International Court of Justice has no jurisdiction in this case.

The Court found (12 in favor and 4 against) that the dispute between Georgia and Russia followed the conflict in South Ossetia (and did not take place in 1992 as claimed by Georgia). "In fact, the dispute between Georgia and Russia "existed " for only three days - from 9 to 12 August, after which Georgia went to the International Court of Justice. Accordingly, for purposes of establishing jurisdiction, the Court considered only that period," said Evgeny Raschevsky, Head of International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution at EPAM.

"While recognizing the existence of a dispute between 9 and 12 August 2008, the Court upheld the position of Russia (10 in favor, 6 against) on the need to resort to out-of-court dispute settlement procedures under Article 22 of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination ", said Evgeny Raschevsky. "The Court found that Georgia had failed to hold mandatory negotiations with the Russian Federation regarding racial discrimination prior to the application to Court, which makes it impossible to accept the application for consideration. "

In August 2008, Georgia initiated a claim against the Russian Federation under the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In October 2008 the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled to indicate certain provisional measures in this proceedings. In December 2009, the Russian Federation filed preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the Court. Subsequently the proceedings were suspended and in September 2010 hearings were conducted in which Georgia tried to persuade the judges to resume consideration of the claim. On 1 April 2011 the International Court of Justice decided to uphold the position of the Russian Federation that underlines the need to attempt to reach a pre-court settlement before resorting to legal action in court.

For advising the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation in the proceedings in the International Court of Justice on the "Georgia against Russia" case, EPAM was honored with the Letter of Commendation from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov.

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