2007-02-26

ICJ's releases today

A press release, the full text of the court's decision and of separate and dissenting opinions, and a not very brief summary. I will have some sort of analysis, most likely tonight.
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3 comments:

observer said...

I found the phrase '...Serbia has not committed genocide, through its organs or persons...' interesting. When the ICJ says persons they must be taking into consideration Milošević, which raises the question has Slobodan in effect been acquitted of genocide in Bosnia?

Also, the below paragraph is also quite interesting:

Regarding the obligation to punish perpetrators of genocide, the Court states that under Article VI of the Convention, States have an obligation to co-operate with “such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction” in the relevant matter, and considers that the ICTY constitutes such an international penal tribunal. The Court further observes that there is plentiful, and mutually corroborative, information suggesting that General Mladić, indicted by the ICTY for genocide, as one of those principally responsible for the Srebrenica massacres, was on the territory of the Respondent at least on several occasions and for substantial periods during the last few years and is still there now, without the Serb authorities doing what they could and can reasonably do to ascertain exactly where he is living and arrest him.

26/2/07 13:26
Eric Gordy said...

I am going to have to take some time to study the decisions before I say much. But I don't think that the decision has to be read as an indirect exoneration of Milosevic -- it seems more as though they are saying that it is more appropriate to establish individual guilt through criminal trials than to attribute guilt to the state.

The combination of not guilty of the act but guilty of failure to prevent and punish is interesting. My first take would be that it is an effort to step back from the "maximal" version of events (remember, the suit was filed in 1993) and elaborate a more medium-range alternative. But I'll be very interested in looking closely at the reasoning.

26/2/07 13:31
observer said...

Thanks Eric,

The word 'persons' just stood out, because the 'joint criminal enterprise' charge against Milošević suggested that he was an active co-participant in the planning and commission of genocide in BiH.

But you're right, before making an informed comment it's best to read the entire judgement (something that I have not yet done...)

26/2/07 13:52

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