“Although it is well known that huge war crimes were committed during the aggression of Serbia and Montenegro against Croatia, which triggered the use of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’, the scale of those crimes still doesn’t come up to the restrictive standards of judicature of international criminal courts on genocides,” said Marko Sjekavica, legal advisor and war crimes trial monitor at the Zagreb-based Civic Committee for Human Rights. Legal experts are doubtful about such optimistic claims, however. “I expect that we will show what really happened, who did what to whom, and win the case,” Croatian justice minister Orsat Miljenic told local media last week. The Zagreb authorities have also said that they will win, bearing in mind the facts and the expertise of their legal team. “The international court is an excellent platform to present our arguments,” it insisted. “Serbia has taken the preparation for the session seriously, and this is showed in our team,” the Serbian foreign ministry said on Thursday, referring to the local and international experts it has recruited to back its case. Unlike ordinary people on the streets of the two capitals, both governments are both sure that the court will rule in their favour. He will be backed by a number of domestic and international experts like British professor William Shabbas and German professor Andreas Zimmermann.
The Serbian team will be led by Sasa Obradovic, inspector general at the foreign ministry, who has already represented Serbia in other cases at the International Court of Justice.
The Croatian team will be assisted by three British lawyers and professors, James Crawford, Philippe Sands and Kier Starmer. The leader of the Croatian team is law professor Vesna Crnic Grotic alongside her will be assistant foreign minister Andreja Metelko Zgombic, Jana Sparo from the justice ministry, Croatian professors of international law Maja Sersic and Davorin Lapas, Yale University professor Mirjan Damask, and Luka Misetic, former lawyer for Croatian general Ante Gotovina. The sessions are expected to last a month, while the verdict is expected by the end of the year and cannot be appealed.īoth countries have made a significant effort to recruit both international and local experts for the Hague proceedings. In response, Serbia submitted a counter-claim in 2010, maintaining that Croatia was guilty of genocide against Serbs during and after the war.Ĭroatia is to present evidence and hear witness testimony first, followed by Serbia. I am just wondering why no one is asking how much this will cost us,” said Nevena Jankovic, a student of philology.Ĭroatia filed genocide charges against Serbia at the International Court of Justice in 1999, also demanding that Belgrade punish all perpetrators of war crimes during the 1990s conflict, return looted cultural property and pay for wartime damages. “Everyone knows that both attempts are useless. The International Court of Justice failed to prove that Serbia was responsible for genocide in Srebrenica, so how they will prove this?” asked pensioner Miloje Nikolic. “It is more than clear that both sides will lose. On the streets of Belgrade meanwhile, there was also not much expectation that either country would triumph in the Hague court. “It is impossible to prove clear genocidal intent from any of the two sides,” Glavas said. Law student Joco Glavas agreed, arguing that both Croatia’s lawsuit and Serbia’s countersuit, also alleging genocide, were inspired by cheap political populism. It should not have been raised in the first place,” marketing expert Hrvoje Klanac told BIRN. “Croatia should have withdrawn its genocide lawsuit. There was not much enthusiasm on the streets of Zagreb for Croatia’s genocide lawsuit against neighbour Serbia, which opens at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Monday. The International Court of Justice in The Hague.
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