Roundup: ICJ rejects genocide claims of Serbia, Croatia

Almost 20 years after the end of the war in former Yugoslavia, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Tuesday dismissed the claims of genocide committed by both Serbia and Croatia.

The ICJ, the highest United Nations court, ruled that indeed crimes have been committed during the war and these crimes had the characteristics of a genocide, but the evidence is lacking that the perpetrators also had a preconceived plan to exterminate a population.

The genocide, a deliberate attempt to destroy a group based on nationality, race, religion or ethnicity, was allegedly committed in the war in former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995, but hard to prove.

Croatia was the first to file a case at the top UN court in 1999 against Yugoslavia, of which Serbia was a part at that time. Croatia contended that the Serbs were responsible for genocide committed in Croatia between 1991 and 1995.

The alleged Serbian ethnic cleansing against Croatian citizens was specifically committed during the siege of the Croatian border town of Vukovar, which was ruined entirely by Yugoslav and Serb fighters in 1991. According to the claim Croats and other non-Serbs were "displaced, killed, tortured, or illegally detained".

Serbia responded in January 2010 with its own counter-claim over alleged genocide committed by Croats in 1995 in the Republic of Serbian Krajina, a self-proclaimed Serb entity within the territory of Croatia, established in late 1991.

During the Operation Storm the Croatian army hit down the revolt of the Serb minority in the country, hundreds of Serbs were reportedly killed and persecuted from their homes resulting in a migration wave out of more than 200,000 Croatian Serbs from Croatia.

During the opening of the hearings on March 3 last year at the ICJ both sides already experienced the difficulty to prove genocidal intent of the opponent state leadership to destroy Croats or Serbs as an ethnic group.

The task was especially difficult because no Serb and no Croat has ever been respectively indicted for genocide in Croatia and Serbia by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), also based in The Hague.

On Tuesday Croatia's claim was rejected by 15 votes to two, while Serbia's claim was rejected unanimously.

The court noted a pattern of persecution during the war, especially of Croats in the areas occupied by Serbs at the beginning of the war. But according to the judges Croatia did not demonstrate the Serbian intent to genocide. The ICJ further weighed that judges at the ICTY have never indicted individuals for genocide in Croatia. With similar reasoning the court rejected the Serbian complaint.

The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It was established by the United Nations Charter in June 1945 and began its activities in April 1946. The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague. Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only one not located in New York. Endit