Croatia wins right to sue Serbia for genocide

Croatia won the right Tuesday to sue Serbia for genocide after the United Nations' highest court ruled it has the legal power to decide the case.

The decision marks the second time Serbia will face the allegation of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Bosnia also accused Serbia's forces of being responsible for humanity's worst crime during the brutal conflicts that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Croatia alleged that Serb attacks which killed and displaced thousands of Croats during Croatia's 1991-95 independence war was a form of genocide.

Zagreb demanded that the court order Belgrade to pay compensation. Croatia also asked the court to order Serbia to help trace people missing from the war and return cultural items plundered during the fighting.

Serbia countered that the court had no jurisdiction. Serbia argued it was not a U.N. member state when Croatia filed the case in 1999 because of the disintegration of Yugoslavia during the wars.

However, the 17-judge tribunal, also known as the World Court, rejected Serbia's arguments, saying that it took over the responsibilities of the former Yugoslavia after that state crumbled in the early 1990s — including its responsibility to adhere to the convention outlawing genocide.

In a 12-5 decision, the court ruled it had "jurisdiction to entertain the case," court president Rosalyn Higgins said.

The court will likely take years to hear legal arguments and rule on the merits. Serbian representative Tibor Varady criticized the ruling, saying it would only serve to prolong tensions between the Balkan neighbors.

"I think it would be much better to insist consistently on individual criminal responsibility," he said.

However the Croatian delegation's leader, Ivan Simonovic, said the case should help both countries move on from the past by bringing legal closure for wartime atrocities.

Croatian President Stipe Mesic said the decision came on the 17th anniversary of the fall of the city of Vukovar, where at least 1,500 Croats were killed and thousands expelled by rebel Serbs.

Mesic described the ruling as "symbolical and just."

In a similar case brought by Bosnia, the court exonerated Serbia in February 2007 of direct responsibility for genocide in Bosnia in the early 1990s, but ruled that it failed to prevent the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica.

(Published by AP - November 18, 2008)