CONFERENCE ON COMMAND RESPONSIBILITY AT NATIONAL COURTS ENDS

ZAGREB, June 14 (Hina) - Croatian and Serbian legal experts concluded at the end of a two-day conference on command responsibility in international and national law in Zagreb on Saturday that it was doubtful whether national courts would be able to rule on command responsibility when there was no personal responsibility for a war crime. #L# The experts agree there is no legal obstacle to national courts in ex-Yugoslavia's successors judging on command responsibility when a commander is also personally responsible for a war crime, because this criminal act existed in the former federation's penal legislation, which the successor states have incorporated in their legal systems, with major or minor changes. Under the Statute of the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and especially the Statute of the Rome-based International Criminal Court, command responsibility has been expanded to include cases even when there is no guilt for a war crime. Command responsibility applies to military and civilian commanders who knew that their subordinates were preparing to commit a war crime but did not prevent it. In such cases, command responsibility may be equated with the perpetrator of a crime, the participants in the conference concluded. They rejected, however, the possibility that the above might apply when a superior could have and should have known that subordinates were preparing to commit a crime but did not prevent or report so. Legal experts agree domestic legislation should be adjusted more to meet international commitments in order to prevent the ICC from taking over cases or retrying those for which it established that domestic legislation was unable to efficiently and fairly prosecute. Efficient war crimes trials at local courts, even for command responsibility as understood by international tribunals, is important because of announcements that the ICTY will turn over some cases for crimes committed from 1991 through 1995 to the domestic judiciary. All agreed the efficiency of national courts and the adjustment of domestic legislation to international standards are crucial to have domestic and not international courts try crimes against international law. They stressed, however, that it is questionable whether this is always possible and, if so, how it can be achieved. The conference was organised by the Humanitarian Law Fund from Belgrade and the Croatian Association for Criminal Science and Practice, in cooperation with the ICTY and the support of the Danish government. (hina) ha