Foreword

Abstract

The judgment the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered on 26 February 2007 in Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), albeit primarily dealing with the issue of state responsibility under international law, also has a bearing on criminal law notions and, more generally, on the question of individual criminal responsibility and its relationship with state responsibility. The ICJ had to pronounce upon the alleged responsibility under the Genocide Convention of then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) with regard to the massacres that the Bosnian Serbs committed against ‘non-Serbian groups’ during the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992–1995. The Court found, by twelve votes to three, that the Respondent state could not be held responsible for genocide or for complicity in genocide; it had, however, violated its obligation to prevent and punish genocide...