T K Vogel — research & analysis

In a landmark ruling announced on February 26, the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that Serbia neither committed nor conspired to commit genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, international media reported. “The court finds that the acts of genocide at Srebrenica cannot be attributed to the respondent’s state organs,” the court’s president, Rosalyn Higgins, said as she read out the judgment, which also cleared Serbia of complicity in genocide. But the court found Serbia in breach of international law in failing to prevent the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica and to punish those responsible for it. The lawsuit was filed by the Bosnian government in 1993, at the height of the 1992-95 war, and was among the most complex and lengthy cases in the court’s 60-year history. It was also the first genocide lawsuit brought by one government against another. The systematic killing of thousands of men and boys from Srebrenica in 1995 has been recognized as genocide by another UN court in The Hague, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which convicted two Bosnian Serb officers for their role in it. Higgins called on Belgrade to take immediate and effective action to extradite fugitive war crimes indictees wanted by the ICTY. Haris Silajdzic, the Muslim member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency, told Bosnian state television that “in order to reverse the results of genocide, we need to change the setup and the [Bosnian] constitution.” This is a clear reference to the abolishment of Republika Srpska, something Silajdzic has long advocated. He also said that Bosnia should outlaw genocide denial. Silajdzic said the ruling was not complete, but contained a recognition that genocide did take place in Bosnia.