World Court begins Georgia-Russia case

by Dave Keating | September 8, 2008 at 03:44 am

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The latest battle between Georgia and Russia will be fought in a courtroom. A case has begun at the World Court in the Hague in the Netherlands to rule on who should control South Ossetia. Any ruling the court makes, however, would not be binding on Russia.

Georgia accused Russia on Monday of a "campaign of harassment and persecution" in its two separatist regions and called on the International Court of Justice to impose emergency measures to halt killings and forced expulsions.

Also on Monday, in a blunt demonstration of who is in charge in the tense zone around South Ossetia, Russian soldiers turned back a United Nations convoy.

The World Court case opened a new legal front in the battle between Georgia and Russia for control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and began as French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Moscow with a European Union delegation for talks aimed at easing the standoff.

But Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Monday just before the EU delegation sat down for talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that Moscow was against an autonomous EU monitoring mission.