The prosecutor was very surprised with the reserved reaction of the international community, notably the Presidency of the European Union, to the judgment of the International Court of Justice, spokesman for the ICTY chief prosecutor Olga Kavran said..
The highest UN court ruled on 26 February that the massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in July 1995 constituted genocide and that Serbia was responsible in that it had failed to prevent it and punish the perpetrators.
Kavran said that the ICJ ruled that Serbia had violated the Convention by failing to extradite Ratko Mladic, whom the ICTY charged with genocide, and failed to meet its obligation to fully cooperate with the ICTY.
Del Ponte pointed to the reaction by the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, who failed to mention the fact that Serbia had violated the genocide convention, instead he applauded the fact that there would be no collective punishment and that the ICJ had closed this chapter. The German Presidency of the European Union, issued a similar statement saying that it hoped the judgement would help the closure of a painful chapter in the history of this region.
Once again there was no mention of the violation of the genocide convention or the arrest of Ratko Mladic, del Ponte said.
This is a potentially tragic outcome, the chief prosecutor said, adding that she was concerned with the fact that Mladic and Karadzic wold never face justice, given that the ICTY is scheduled to close in 2010.
This would have a tragic impact on the international justice and our fight against impunity.