Genocide: - DIIS

Martin Mennecke and Eric Markusen
While Sikirica has been acquitted of the genocide count, the case is signifi -
cant because of its further interpretation of the crime of genocide. The Trial
Chamber entered into a lengthy discussion of the “in part” criterion and
provided for valuable defi nitions – work which deserves more detailed
analysis. Discussing the term “leadership” the Trial Chamber rejected, for
example, the Prosecution’s submission that all Bosnian Muslims who had
fought to defend their villages could be regarded as leaders. The judges
warned “[a]cceptance of that submission would necessarily involve a defi -
nition of leadership so elastic as to be meaningless.” 221 At the same time,
it should be recalled that the Trial Chamber in the Krstic case based its assessment
of the “in part” criterion on the role of the male population as factual,
but also potential defenders of the Muslim population of Srebrenica.
While the number of killings at Srebrenica evidently by far surpasses the
ones in the Prijedor region, this difference in fi gures cannot contribute to
an understanding of the merely qualitative criterion of “a signifi cant section”.
It is submitted that the events in Srebrenica and Prijedor may differ
in numbers, but perhaps not in their consequences for the victim group. In
both instances, the Muslim population was possibly rendered defenceless,
at least this is also a reasonable supposition in the case of Prijedor. 222
In light of the decision of Prosecution and Defense to enter into a guiltyplea
agreement, the Sikirica case has not been appealed. Therefore, one
will have to wait for other cases before the ICTY or ICTR before light can
be shed on the questions that arise from this case.
of the other cases involving the detention of persons in camps in the Prijedor municipality,
has the Prosecution alleged genocide“.
221 Ibid., para. 81.
222 Cf. this also with the formulations used in the Amhici case (see supra notes 48-51 and
accompanying text). There the judges, in the context of crimes against humanity and
war crimes, stated: “The purpose of the attack was to destroy as many Muslim houses
as possible, to kill all the men of military age, and thereby prompt all the others to leave the
village and move elsewhere… In short… the Croatian attack was aimed at civilians for the
purpose of ‘ethnic cleansing.’” While the authors added the emphasis, the parallel to the
Krstic case is evident and provokes additional questions.
223 Lawyers and social scientists have quite different agendas, “one practical, the other theo-
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