Original scientific paper
Some Comments on the Law on Organisation and Competences of State Authorities in War Crime Proceedings of the Republic of Serbia
Davor Derenčinović
; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The subject of this article is an analysis of the Law on Organization and Competences of State Authorities in War Crimes Proceedings, adopted in 2003 in the Republic of Serbia. Firstly, the author analyses Article 3 which stipulates that the state authorities of the Republic of Serbia are competent to institute criminal proceedings for criminal offences provided for in that Law, committed in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator or victim. On the basis of that Law, competent authorities in the Republic of Serbia have initiated proceedings against Croatian and Bosnian citizens for crimes committed in these two countries during the aggression and armed conflict in the early 1990s. The paper seeks to determine whether the disputed provision provides for universal jurisdiction and whether its application violates the generally accepted principles of criminal and international law - the principle of legal certainty and the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states.
Keywords
universal jurisdiction; war crimes; principle of non-intervention; principle of legal certainty
Hrčak ID:
93202
URI
Publication date:
8.10.2012.
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