CROATIA SUBMITS EXPLANATION OF ITS SUIT AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA TO ICJ

THE HAGUE, Feb 28 (Hina) - Croatia will on Thursday submit to the International Court of Justice documents explaining a suit it filed against Yugoslavia in July 1999 for violating the regulations of the Genocide Convention. The deadline for submitting the documents expires on March 14 and Belgrade will have to respond to them by September 16 2002. On July 2, 1999 Croatia initiated proceedings before the ICJ against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for violating the 1948 convention on the prevention and prosecution of genocide crimes committed in Croatia between 1991 and 1995. Croatia requested that the highest judicial body of the United Nations rule that Yugoslavia had committed genocide in Croatia and to determine reparations which Belgrade should pay. Croatia's expert group which prepared several thousand pages of documents, is headed by Croatia's Ambassador to the UN, Ivan Simonovic, a professor at Zagreb's Faculty of Law, Ivo Josipovic, and Croatia's Ambassador to the Netherlands, Jaksa Muljacic. Croatia's new team abandoned the concept of ethnic "self- cleansing" of Croatian Serbs, which had been drawn up by Croatia's former legal representative, US attorney David Rivkin. The hiring of the US attorney caused controversy in the Croatian public after his millions-high fees were made public. Controversy was also caused by the lack of transparency of Croatia's former government's motives for initiating the proceedings. While appointing Croatia's new legal representatives lest year, Croatian Justice Minister Stjepan Ivanisevic said the framework budget for drawing up the documents explaining the lawsuit amounted to US$700,000. The ICJ is the highest judicial body of the United Nations established after World War Two to settle disputes between countries. Parties in a dispute can be only states and not institutions or individuals. In March 1993, Bosnia-Herzegovina sued Yugoslavia for genocide with the ICJ. (hina) rml