The World Court's Fractured Ruling on Genocide

Abstract

In February 2007 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a lengthy judgment in a major genocide case, Bosnia v. Serbia, arising from the Balkans war of the early 1990s. Two of the ICJ's unprecedented rulings are major advancements for enforcement of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG). First, the Serbian state was found to be in violation of its art. 1 obligation to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. This is a significant boost for both the UNCG and the emerging legal principle of the responsibility to protect civilian populations at risk of atrocity crimes. Second, the ICJ ruled that a state, and not only individuals, can be found responsible for genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, or complicity in genocide. Despite these encouraging rulings, however, the ICJ's majority judgment exhibits several serious shortcomings. The first is the majority's failure to develop...