ICJ CONFIRMS ITS JURISDICTION IN BOSNIA'S SUIT AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA

ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Feb 3 (Hina) - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday declared itself as the competent court for tackling Bosnia-Herzegovina's genocide suit against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), and thus rejected Belgrade's challenge to its jurisdiction. #L# The president of this Hague-based court, Gilber Guillaume, said that it had rejected the Yugoslav challenge. In April 2001, Yugoslavia filed a request for reconsideration of the court's ruling of 11 July 1996 when it decided that it was the competent court in the case of the suit which Sarajevo lodged against Belgrade for genocide. Belgrade insisted on the revision of the ruling, claiming that by its admission into the United Nations on 1 November 2000, as a new member "it became clear that it (FRY) did not continue the international legal and political subjectivity of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)". Demanding the reconsideration of the ruling, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia also cited that one of the reasons for its request was the fact that the accession to the Convention on Genocide could not have a retroactive effect and that the FRY had never accepted Article IX of the convention. The article stipulates that the ICJ decided upon the request of one party. In March 1993, Bosnia requested the ICJ to enable it to sue the FRY for its breaches of the said convention, which Yugoslavia violated through war destruction. Sarajevo based the ICJ's jurisdiction on Article IX. In preliminary proceedings in June 1995, Belgrade already tried to challenge the jurisdiction of the ICJ, but in July 1996, the ICJ turned down the Yugoslav request and proclaimed itself competent pursuant to Article IX. Croatia filed a genocide suit against the FRY in July 1999. The ICJ is the UN top judicial body competent for dealing with disputes between UN member-states. (hina) ms