The UN’s highest court yesterday ruled that neither Croatia nor Serbia had committed genocide against each other’s populations during the wars that accompanied the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
International Court of Justice (ICJ) president Peter Tomka said the forces of both countries had committed crimes during the conflict, but that the intent to commit genocide — by “destroying a population in whole or in part” — had not been proven against either country.
Finding that neither side had violated the 1948 Genocide Convention, he called on the erstwhile Balkan foes to continue their cooperation in compensating victims with a view to “consolidating peace and stability in the region.”
Photo: EPA
The cases were part of the long legal fallout from the break-up of Yugoslavia into seven states in wars that lasted eight years and left more than 130,000 dead in Europe’s worst conflagration since World War II.
Croatia filed its case against Belgrade in 1999 and Serbia its counter-case against Zagreb only in 2010.
“Croatia has not established that the only reasonable inference was the intent to destroy in whole or in part the [Croatian] group,” Tomka said of Serbia’s campaign to destroy towns and expel civilians in Slavonia and Dalmatia.
Rejecting Serbia’s counterclaim, he said Croatia had not committed genocide when it sought to drive ethnic Serbs from Krajina Province.
“What is generally called ethnic cleansing does not constitute genocide,” he said. “Acts of ethnic cleansing may be part of a genocidal plan, but only if there is an intention to physically destroy the target group.”
The panel of judges rejected Croatia’s claim by 15 votes to two. Serbia’s counterclaim was rejected unanimously, implying that even Serbia’s delegated judge had ruled against.
The UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which also sits in The Hague, has long since ruled that genocide was committed in Bosnia, where more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed when the UN “safe haven” of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.
So far the ICJ, which rules in disputes between states, has recognized only one genocide case since opening its doors in 1946.
Genocide is the most serious of international crimes, but also the hardest to prove. In 2007 the court ruled that genocide had taken place in 1995, at Srebrenica.
The decisions in the current case, which was heard in March last year, were reached by a 17-judge bench.
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