PanARMENIAN.Net
The verdict of the International Court of Justice on Serbian issue
displayed the limits of the international law
The International Court of Justice in the Hague has become a very
popular place for settling old and new accounts.
01.03.2007 GMT+04:00
Over the last several years the word `genocide’ has been used so
often, that it has already become an ordinary word used in everyday
life. True some hundred thousand innocent people were slaughtered, so
what of it? And few ever ask themselves the question; how it happened
that they were all killed on ethnic grounds. And why are in one case
massacres qualified as tragic events, and in another case – as
genocide?
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The verdict of the International Court of Justice in
the Hague, according to which Serbia doesn’t carry any direct
responsibility for the genocide committed during the war in Bosnia,
has given rise to a number of questions, one of the most important
among which is; who was to blame for the slaughter of the Bosnian
Muslims? The Court admitted only one fact of the genocide in Bosnia
during the interethnic conflict of 1992-95, that is the slaughter of
the 8 thousand Muslim men and male children committed by Bosnian Serbs
in the city of Srebrenica in 1995.
But it must be admitted, that the International Court of Justice in
the Hague has become a very popular place for settling old and new
accounts. Most likely Serbia really wasn’t guilty; there was war, and
who knows who really slaughtered those 8 thousand Bosnian Muslims?
However the Court noticed that the Serbian Government didn’t do its
best to prevent the tragedy. Naturally, after the verdict was
announced spiritual leaders of the Bosnian Muslims expressed their
disappointment over the decision of the International Court of Justice
in the Hague. The Times writes; `The positive side of the ten years’
hearings was that the relatives of the victims to speak from
international platforms, however the Court didn’t have any chances to
read the verdict of guilty from the very beginning and moreover to
administer the measure of punishment. The verdict on Serbian issue
displayed the limits of the international law.’
This entire story may refer to Armenia as well. As it is known, Turkey
is considering the opportunity to appeal to the International Court of
Justice in the Hague regarding the issue of the Armenian Genocide.
The Minister of Turkish Foreign Affairs Abdullah Gul announced about
it. According to him diplomats are in retirement, Turkish and foreign
`trustees’ are carrying out detailed study of the issue. The article
published in Milliyet which is entitled `Turkish Historical Course’
states that the Turkish Government is `developing new policy’
regarding `the confirmation’ of the Armenian Genocide, which follows
the sentence about establishing a committee of scholars.
The idea of Turkey’s appeal to the International Court of Justice is
not fresh, and its initiator is the Turkish diplomat Gunduz Aktan, who
has been appointed the Turkish Ambassador to different European
Structures. According to Ruben Safrastyan, Director of Department of
Turkish Studies at Institute of Oriental Studies, Armenian National
Academy of Sciences, there were two different Turkish policies
developed towards the issue of the Armenian Genocide. `They were going
to continue implementing the denial policy or to appeal to the
International Court of Justice, mentioning that the Armenians in any
case will not be able to prove that the events of 1915 can ever be
qualified as Genocide. The decision was made on the highest level by
the Turkish General Stuff’, he mentioned. It should be mentioned that
Aktan is one of the most unyielding Turkish politicians in this issue
and as a member of Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Committee he has
always spoken against the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
However it is very unlikely that Turkey will have the courage to
appeal to the Hague Court. Perhaps Turkey will manage to give proves
against the massacre committed in the years of World War I, but
telegrams by Minister of Home Affairs Taleat Pasha regarding `the
final decision of the Armenian issue’ overbalance all the rest.
International Court of Justice is a higher judicial organ for settling
different disputes between UN Member States. Its meetings have been
held in the Peace Palace in the Hague since 1946. It is composed of 15
judges elected to nine year terms. If one of the parties doesn’t carry
out the Court’s decision, the other party may appeal to the UN
Security Council. All the decisions made by the International Court of
Justice are to be carried out, are considered final and are not
subject to any appeal. «PanARMENIAN.Net» analytical department