Bosnian Genocide - International Court of Justice (ICJ)

International Court of Justice (ICJ)

On 26 February 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in the Bosnian Genocide Case concurred with the ICTY's earlier finding that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide:

ICJ President Rosalyn Higgins noted that there was a lot of evidence to prove that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina such as widespread killings, the siege of towns, mass rapes, torture, deportation to camps and detention centres, but the ICJ did not have jurisdiction over them, because the case dealt "exclusively with genocide in a limited legal sense and not in the broader sense sometimes given to this term". Moreover, the Court found "that Serbia has not committed genocide" nor "conspired to" or "incited the commission of genocide". It did however, find that Serbia had failed "to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Srebrenica" and to comply fully with the ICTY by failing to transfer Ratko Mladić to the custody of the ICTY in the Hague and that Serbia must in future transfer to the Hague all ICTY-indicted individuals, who reside under Serbian jurisdiction.