Croatia has filed a case against Serbia at the International Court of Justice accusing Belgrade of being directly involved in genocide in the early 1990s during the Yugoslav civil wars that torn the erstwhile Yugoslavia into pieces. Zagreb’s allegations which were registered first in 1999 are set to proceed at the UN’s International Court of Justice after judges at the Hague voted by ten to seven urging that the court has the jurisdiction to hear the case although some points and facts in favor of Serbia render the process somewhat complicated when it would come to bringing charges against the recently formed Serbian state.

The allegations are serious though with Serb forces being involved in the killings of nearly 20000 Croatians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, both Croats and Serbs. The charges filed by Croatia in 1999 against Serbia actually read, ‘a form of genocide which resulted in large numbers of Croatian citizens being displaced, killed, tortured, or illegally detained as well extensive property destruction.’ The charges also include crimes committed, ‘in the Knin region, and in eastern and western Slavonia and Dalmatia.’

This is the second case being filed against the Serbs after another breakaway Balkan nation Bosnia unsuccessfully brought similar ‘genocide’ charges against Belgrade in February 2007 only to be turned down by the International Court of Justice. Given Serbia’s newly acquired statehood, one would argue the very fact that most of the war crimes were committed before the formation of the current republic.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under President Slobodan Milosevic was not a member of the UN when the case was filed in 1999. This is also major point that would be debated when the hearing takes place in the near future.

The UN’s decision to proceed with an eight-year old case comes at a time when Belgrade’s pro-western government has stepped up efforts to hand over suspected Balkan war criminals to the Hague’s International Court of Justice. Isn’t this UN action a bit surprising when Serbia has already handed over Radovan Karadzic to the ICJ despite coming under severe pressure from ultra-nationalistic Serb political forces?

It remains to be seen what follows the hearing and whether Serbia gets punished for the deeds committed by Milosevic’s old Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.