That Someone Guilty Be Punished - International Center for ...

y September 2003. While RS authorities apparently did not respond to this decision, their response
to the OHR mandate, described in the text, came the following year.
610. See Beth Kampschror, “RS Prime Minister Attends Srebrenica Anniversary Ceremony,”
SETimes.com, July 14, 2003.
611. Id.
612. The first interim report was issued on April 14, 2004. An addendum was completed in
October 2004. In April 2004, the High Representative Paddy Ashdown discharged two Bosnian
Serb officials for obstructing the work of the commission. See “Bosnian Serbs admit Srebrenica
massacre,” AFP, June 11, 2004.
613. See “Bosnian Serbs admit to Srebrenica,” BBC News, June 11, 2004, at http://news.bbc.
co.uk/2/hi/europe/3799937.stm. Of these, 28 were “secondary,” meaning that they contained bodies
originally buried somewhere else. Eleven of the sites had not previously been disclosed. See
Nicholas Wood, “Bosnian Serbs Admit Responsibility for the Massacre of 7,000,” New York Times,
June 12, 2004.
614. Samir Krilić, “Bosnian Serbs Admit to Massacre,” AP, in Washington Post, June 12, 2004.
615. “Bosnia Herzegovina: President Dragan Čavić Acknowledges Atrocities against Muslims in
Srebrenica in 1995,” Reuters, at at http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/2004/06/22/40622
0052/?s=srebrenica. In the lead-up to the report, Čavić had indicated that his government would,
in the words of the New York Times, “begin to redress its hard-line stance” on wartime atrocities by
Serbs. Čavić said: “After years of prevarication, we will have to finally face up to ourselves and to
the dark side of our past. We must have courage to do that.” Id.
616. Associated Press, Nov. 11, 2004.
617. For example, this point was made during interviews with Emir Suljagić, Gojko Berić, and
Ivan Lovrenović.
618. Case Concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro, Judgment, 297 (Feb.
26, 2007). The Court also found that Serbia had breached its legal obligations to prevent and punish
genocide. See id., 438 (responsibility for failure to prevent genocide) and 449-450 (responsibility
for failure to punish as well as to prevent genocide). The ICJ found, however, that the Srebrenica
genocide itself could not be legally attributed to Serbia. See id., 415. It also found that Serbia’s legal
responsibility for complicity in genocide had not been established. Id., 424.
619. The ruling came in a case brought by Bosnia against Serbia and Montenegro, and thus RS
authorities were not respondents. But the ICJ assessed Bosnian Serbs’ wartime actions as part of
its assessment of Belgrade’s legal responsibility for the crimes perpetrated in Bosnia. RS leadership
had unsuccessfully tried to have the case discontinued. Between June 1999 and October 2000, in
a series of letters sent to the Court, the then Chairman of the Presidency of BiH, Zivko Radisić—
himself a Bosnian Serb—and a Co-Agent he unilaterally appointed (Svetozar Miletić, another Serb),
argued that the case should be terminated. The National Assembly of Republika Srpska declared
during that period that continuation of the case would be “destructive of a vital interest” of Republika
Srpska. During the same period, the Bosniak and Croat members of the tri-partite Bosnian
Presidency informed the Court that the case should continue. Finally, on Oct. 10, 2000, the Court
concluded that there had been no discontinuance of the case by BiH. Case concerning Application
THAT SOMEONE GUILTY BE PUNISHED 179