"Both Serbia and Croatia will lose"
No one will be satisfied with the International Court of Justice's ruling in the Croatian genocide lawsuit against Serbia, a prominent Croatian lawyer predicts.
Sunday, 23.11.2008.
12:49
No one will be satisfied with the International Court of Justice's ruling in the Croatian genocide lawsuit against Serbia, a prominent Croatian lawyer predicts. Anto Nobilo told today's Blic newspaper that the ICJ declaring itself competent to hear the case has caused "inappropriate euphoria and great hopes" in Croatia, while at issue is "only the court's technical decision that it will deal with the case". "Both Serbia and Croatia will lose" "Personally I believe that Croatia, unlike Bosnia, will have no problem to prove that Serbia was involved in the conflict in a specific period of time, since the Novi Sad Corps [of the Yugoslav People's Army, JNA] was directly deployed in the Croatian territory, but there will be problems to prove genocide, because, fortunately, none took place," this lawyer continued. Nobilo also said that "there were mass war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war, there was ethnic cleansing, but in its volume, dispersal and intensity, it never crossed the boundary that would mean genocide". And while he believes that Croatia will fail with its lawsuit, Nobilo concedes that Serbia "had to go for a counter-suit in this situation". "Serbia must do this, if for no other reason, then to improve her negotiating position, but this counter-suit will not succeed either. If it encompasses the NDH [Croatia's WW2 puppet Nazi entity] it will fail for two reasons: the Genocide Convention was adopted after the Second World War, while today's Croatia is not a legal heir to the quisling NDH, and cannot, under international law, answer for its crimes," he said. When it comes to Operation Storm, when in 1995 up to a quarter of a million Croatian Serbs were forced out of their homes, Nobilo says that this Croatian army and police campaign "had more important elements that get close to genocide than was the case in Vukovar, however, it, too, never became genocide". Asked whether he expects the relations between the two countries to worsen for a long period of time, Nobilo advised turning the problem over to the ICJ to deal with, and urged politics to be left out of the case, in order to salvage the achieved results and normalized relations. Nobilo also told the newspaper that he believes a settlement between Croatia and Serbia is also one possible outcome.
"Both Serbia and Croatia will lose"
"Personally I believe that Croatia, unlike Bosnia, will have no problem to prove that Serbia was involved in the conflict in a specific period of time, since the Novi Sad Corps [of the Yugoslav People's Army, JNA] was directly deployed in the Croatian territory, but there will be problems to prove genocide, because, fortunately, none took place," this lawyer continued.Nobilo also said that "there were mass war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war, there was ethnic cleansing, but in its volume, dispersal and intensity, it never crossed the boundary that would mean genocide".
And while he believes that Croatia will fail with its lawsuit, Nobilo concedes that Serbia "had to go for a counter-suit in this situation".
"Serbia must do this, if for no other reason, then to improve her negotiating position, but this counter-suit will not succeed either. If it encompasses the NDH [Croatia's WW2 puppet Nazi entity] it will fail for two reasons: the Genocide Convention was adopted after the Second World War, while today's Croatia is not a legal heir to the quisling NDH, and cannot, under international law, answer for its crimes," he said.
When it comes to Operation Storm, when in 1995 up to a quarter of a million Croatian Serbs were forced out of their homes, Nobilo says that this Croatian army and police campaign "had more important elements that get close to genocide than was the case in Vukovar, however, it, too, never became genocide".
Asked whether he expects the relations between the two countries to worsen for a long period of time, Nobilo advised turning the problem over to the ICJ to deal with, and urged politics to be left out of the case, in order to salvage the achieved results and normalized relations.
Nobilo also told the newspaper that he believes a settlement between Croatia and Serbia is also one possible outcome.
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