UN court: Genocide at Srebrenica
The United Nations’ highest court today ruled that Bosnian Serbs committed genocide during the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, but has yet to announce whether Serbia, as a nation, should be held responsible.
As she continued reading the book-length judgment in The Hague, Netherlands, court president Judge Rosalyn Higgins said the panel of international judges relied heavily on the findings of the UN war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia.
The tribunal has convicted two Bosnian Serb army officers on genocide-related charges for the deliberate slaughter of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims at the UN-protected enclave
Bosnia has claimed that Serbia bears responsibility for the genocide but the court has yet to pronounce its key finding on whether Serbia had the intention to destroy “in whole or in part” the Bosnian Muslim population of Srebrenica, the key element in defining genocide.
In a key ruling at the outset, Judge Higgins rejected Serbia’s argument that the court had no jurisdiction in the case, saying Serbia had the obligation to abide by the 1948 Genocide Convention throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Judge Higgins also said Montenegro, which withdrew from the Serbia-Montenegro federation last year, was no longer part of the case.
