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CROATIA VS SERBIA: GENOCIDE THE HARDEST TO PROVE
Agence France Presse
February 3, 2015 Tuesday 1:34 AM GMT
The Hague, Feb 3 2015
Genocide, of which Croatia and Serbia have accused each other
before the UN's highest court, is the gravest crime in international
humanitarian law -- and also the most difficult to prove.
The International Court of Justice will hand down its judgement in
The Hague on Tuesday in a long-running case between the two former
foes for acts committed during the bitter civil wars that followed
the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
Derived from the Greek word "genos", for race or tribe, and the suffix
"cide" from the Latin for "to kill"; genocide is defined by the United
Nations as an "act committed with intent to destroy in whole or in
part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
The word was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who took
refuge in the United States, to describe crimes committed by Nazi
Germany during the Holocaust.
It was used for the first time within a legal framework by an
international military tribunal at Nuremberg to try Nazi leaders for
their crimes in 1945. Those accused were however convicted of crimes
against humanity.
Genocide has been recognised within international law since 1948,
with the advent of the UN Convention, and lists murder among a series
of crimes.
The UN in 1985 recognised the 1915 killing of hundreds of thousands
of Armenians as genocide.
In 1994, the Rwandan genocide in which the UN said some 800,000
Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered, led to the creation of the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania.
It has been handing out convictions since 1998 for the crime of
genocide and complicity.
The massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces
at Srebrenica in July 1995 during the Bosnian war, was recognised as
genocide by the ICJ in 2007.
The Balkans war crimes court, the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), has convicted several accused
of genocide.
Two former leaders of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79
were handed life sentences in Phnom Penh for crimes against humanity
last August and their genocide trial before a UN-sponsored tribunal
continues.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International
Criminal Court (ICC) on an arrest warrant for genocide related to
crimes committed against Darfur's civilian population.
Since its inception in 2002, the Hague-based ICC is the only permanent
independent international court able to try the perpetrators of
genocide on all continents.
Agence France Presse
February 3, 2015 Tuesday 1:34 AM GMT
The Hague, Feb 3 2015
Genocide, of which Croatia and Serbia have accused each other
before the UN's highest court, is the gravest crime in international
humanitarian law -- and also the most difficult to prove.
The International Court of Justice will hand down its judgement in
The Hague on Tuesday in a long-running case between the two former
foes for acts committed during the bitter civil wars that followed
the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
Derived from the Greek word "genos", for race or tribe, and the suffix
"cide" from the Latin for "to kill"; genocide is defined by the United
Nations as an "act committed with intent to destroy in whole or in
part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
The word was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who took
refuge in the United States, to describe crimes committed by Nazi
Germany during the Holocaust.
It was used for the first time within a legal framework by an
international military tribunal at Nuremberg to try Nazi leaders for
their crimes in 1945. Those accused were however convicted of crimes
against humanity.
Genocide has been recognised within international law since 1948,
with the advent of the UN Convention, and lists murder among a series
of crimes.
The UN in 1985 recognised the 1915 killing of hundreds of thousands
of Armenians as genocide.
In 1994, the Rwandan genocide in which the UN said some 800,000
Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered, led to the creation of the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania.
It has been handing out convictions since 1998 for the crime of
genocide and complicity.
The massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces
at Srebrenica in July 1995 during the Bosnian war, was recognised as
genocide by the ICJ in 2007.
The Balkans war crimes court, the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), has convicted several accused
of genocide.
Two former leaders of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79
were handed life sentences in Phnom Penh for crimes against humanity
last August and their genocide trial before a UN-sponsored tribunal
continues.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International
Criminal Court (ICC) on an arrest warrant for genocide related to
crimes committed against Darfur's civilian population.
Since its inception in 2002, the Hague-based ICC is the only permanent
independent international court able to try the perpetrators of
genocide on all continents.