The Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia)[1] was heard before the International Court of Justice.
The Republic of Serbia counterfiled a suit charging the Republic of Croatia with genocide, on 4 January 2010.[4] The application covers missing people, killed people, refugees, expelled people and all military actions and concentration camps with historical account of World War II persecution of Serbs committed by the Independent State of Croatia, puppet state of Nazi Germany, and Ustaše during World War II.[5]
Both applications had a financial aspect, seeking compensation of damages. Opening arguments began on Monday, 3 March 2014 and lasted until 1 April 2014.[6][7] On 3 February 2015, the International Court of Justice ruled that neither Serbia nor Croatia proved sufficient evidence that either side committed genocide, thereby dismissing both cases.[8]
Facts
Croatia waited until the conclusion of the Bosnian Genocide Case before it proceeded with its own case. Sakib Softić, who worked on the Bosnian case, stated that Croatia was in a much better position than his country was in its own court suit.[9]
Preliminary objections
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia returned its preliminary objections on 1 September 2002.[10] On 18 November 2008, the court decided on preliminary objections to the case filed by Serbia. The court ruled against Serbia's three objections to the case, while finding that one of these objections was not purely preliminary. Finally, the court decided that it had jurisdiction over the case.[2] Croatia was represented at the proceedings by its justice minister, Ivan Šimonović.[11] The decision made headlines in Croatia and Serbia, especially as it fell on the anniversary of the fall of Vukovar in 1991 to Serb forces.[12] Croatia has reported that since 1995, at least 120 mass graves have been discovered mainly in Eastern Slavonia, Dalmatia and Knin.[13]
Serbian officials sought for Croatia to withdraw from the lawsuit on multiple occasions.[14][15] Then President of Serbia Boris Tadić said that "Serbia considered in previous years, and still believes, that it is always better for all conflicts from wars during the 1990s to be solved in extra-judicial processes, through peaceful means, however, for such an approach of Serbia, partners on the other side are needed" and the Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić said that "I think it would be better for Croatia for it to never come to this process. Our main goal and wish is not to sue each other, but to cooperate on the road towards EU integration, to build good neighborly relations, to solve problems which we have inherited."[16][17] In November 2013 Serbia's Prime Minister Ivica Dačić reiterated a wish for mutual withdrawal of lawsuits between the two countries.[18]
Serbia v. Croatia
Following the court ruling that it had the jurisdiction in Croatia's case, Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremić announced a plan to file a counter-suit against Croatia.[19] The application was submitted on 4 January 2010. The document included information on crimes committed against Serbs in Gospić, Sisak, Pakrac, Karlovac, Osijek, Paulin Dvor and during the operations Operation Flash, Operation Storm and Operation Medak Pocket. The lawsuit also covered all those victims murdered after the war as they tried to return to the homes which they had left as refugees. The lawsuit against Croatia contained a historical account, with a focus on Second World War-era persecution of Serbs.[4]
A public opinion poll in Serbia by Blic found that 69.7% of people supported the counter-suit, while 9.1% opposed it.[20] The lawsuit has been opposed by the minor opposition Liberal Democratic Party whose leader said that "Serbia needs a smart foreign policy, which will not respond with a mistake to a mistake that was made in the last century by Croatia".[21][22]
President Tomislav Nikolić of Serbia called for a mutual withdrawal of the genocide suits in January 2014.[23]
Relation to the ICTY
As the final verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the case of Prosecutor v. Gotovina et al. was a reversal of conviction (de facto acquittal), some German media speculated that this opens a possibility for Serbia to pay large reparations to Croatia.[24]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal was an ad hoc court located in The Hague, Netherlands.
The Bosnian genocide refers to either the Srebrenica massacre or the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing campaign throughout areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995. The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25,000–30,000 Bosniak civilians by VRS units under the command of General Ratko Mladić.
Dragan Vasiljković, nicknamed Captain Dragan is a convicted war criminal and the former commander of a Serb paramilitary unit called the Knindže or during the Yugoslav Wars. In 2005, prosecutors in Croatia accused him of committing war crimes during the wars. A warrant for his arrest was subsequently issued by Interpol.
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992.
Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro [2007] ICJ 2 is a public international law case decided by the International Court of Justice.
The Voćin massacre was the killing of 43 civilians in Voćin, Croatia, by the Serbian White Eagles paramilitary unit on 13 December 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence. The massacre was carried out after the unit was ordered to abandon the village before the Croatian Army recaptured the area in Operation Papuk-91. All the victims were local Croats, save one Serb, who had tried to protect his neighbours. Gunfire was the leading cause of death, though some of the victims were killed with axes or chainsaws, or were burned to death. The victims exhibited signs of torture and were left unburied. On the night of 13–14 December, the White Eagles dynamited a 550-year-old church in the village.
Vuk Jeremić is a Serbian politician and diplomat who served as the president of the United Nations General Assembly from 2012 to 2013 and as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia from 2007 to 2012.
Franko "Frenki" Simatović is a Serbian former intelligence officer of Croatian descent and commander of the elite special forces police unit Special Operations Unit (JSO) from 1991 to 1998.
Radovan Karadžić is a Bosnian Serb politician who was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He was the president of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War.
Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo was a request in 2008 for an advisory opinion referred to the International Court of Justice by the United Nations General Assembly regarding the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence. The territory of Kosovo is the subject of a dispute between Serbia and the Republic of Kosovo established by the declaration. This was the first case regarding a unilateral declaration of independence to be brought before the court.
Foreign relations between Croatia and Serbia are bound together by shared history, language and geography. The two states established diplomatic relations in 1996, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the Croatian War of Independence and the independence of Croatia. Modern diplomatic relations are functional but cold, stemming from historic nation-building conflict and divergent political ideologies. Their relationship holds geopolitical importance in Southeast Europe given their economic influence in the region.
The Sjeverin massacre was the massacre on 22 October 1992 of 16 Bosniak citizens of Serbia from the village of Sjeverin who had been abducted from a bus in the village of Mioče, in Bosnia. The abductees were taken to the Vilina Vlas hotel in Višegrad where they were tortured before being taken to the Drina River and executed. Members of a Serbian paramilitary unit commanded by Milan Lukić were convicted of the crime in 2002.
Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars, which took place between 1991 and 1999—the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia, and Kosovo. From 1991 to 1997, Slobodan Milošević was the President of Serbia. Serbia was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has established that Milošević was in control of Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the wars which were fought there from 1991 to 1995.
The thematic debate on the role of international criminal justice in reconciliation is an interactive thematic public debate convened on 10 April 2013 by Vuk Jeremić, President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) during the assembly's 67th session. The debate was organized after the conclusion of the Trial of Gotovina et al at the ICTY in which the court acquitted two defendants charged with war crimes against Serbs in Croatia. Some countries, notably the United States and Croatia, refused to participate in the debate and some of the invited participants, such as the president of the ICTY, cancelled their participation.
The border between Croatia and Serbia in the area of the Danube is disputed, an important part of their broader diplomatic relations. While Serbia claims that the thalweg of the Danube valley and the centerline of the river represents the international border between the two countries, Croatia disagrees, claiming that the international border lies along the boundaries of the cadastral municipalities located along the river—departing from the course at several points along a 140-kilometre (87 mi) section. The cadastre-based boundary reflects the course of the Danube which existed in the 19th century, before anti-meandering and hydrotechnical engineering works altered its course. The area size of the territory in dispute is reported variously, up to 140 km2.
Alleged Violations of the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights is the formal name of a case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Iran filed a lawsuit with the Hague-based ICJ against the United States, on 16 July 2018, mainly based on the 1955 Treaty of Amity signed between the two sides on 15 August 1955 and entered into force in 1957, well before the Islamic revolution of Iran. Iranian officials alleged that U.S. re-imposition of the nuclear sanctions was a violation of the treaty. Iran also filed a request for provisional measures. In response, the United States asserted that the lawsuit as "baseless" and vowed to oppose it. Almost a month later, the ICJ heard the provisional measures request. On 3 October 2018, the International Court of Justice issued a provisional measures order requiring the United States "to lift sanctions linked to humanitarian goods and civil aviation imposed against Iran."
The Medari massacre was the mass murder of 22 Croatian Serb civilians on 1 May 1995 by members of the Croatian Army (HV) during Operation Flash.
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