Original scientific paper
Analysis of the Judgement of the International Court of Justice in the Dispute on the Implementation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Serbia
Toma Galli
orcid.org/0000-0002-7015-7092
; Ministry of Foreign Affaires, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
On 3 February 2015, the International Court of Justice in The Hague delivered the judgement in the dispute between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Serbia on the implementation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The judgement constitutes the decision of the Court in the underlying dispute to indirectly prove genocidal intent, as well as the close of a long legal battle of the parties to the dispute over jurisdiction of the Court to rule on the applicability of the Convention also to events prior to 27 April 1992, the capacity of Croatia to institute proceedings and the capacity of Serbia to appear as a party to the dispute concerning the events that had occurred before the indicated date. In deciding on its jurisdiction, the Court had tentatively constructed it in response to a series of consecutive questions that also make the merits of this dispute, namely: 1. whether the events referred to by Croatia did actually occur and whether they were in contravention to the Genocide Convention; 2. if so, whether these events were attributable to SFRY at the time when they occurred, and whether they engaged its responsibility; 3. if they engaged the responsibility of the SFRY, whether the FRY, subsequently Serbia, succeeded to that responsibility. By responding negatively to the first question, both in relation to the claim as well as in relation to the counter-claim, the Court did not even consider the remaining assumptions of its jurisdictional construction.
Keywords
Croatia; Serbia, genocide; UN Convention on prohibition and punishment of crime of genocide; Article IX, International Court of Justice
Hrčak ID:
164189
URI
Publication date:
25.6.2016.
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