ZAGREB, March 3 (Hina) - Professor of international law at Rijeka-based law school, Vladimir Djuro Degan, on Friday told Hina that the sentence pronounced today in the Blaskic case was the biggest challenge for the Prosecution and the
International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). "Contrary to the Nuremberg and Tokyo military tribunals in the wake of the Second World War, the (Hague-based) ICTY is not a judicial body established only for punishment of those who have suffered the defeat in the war. The Hague Tribunal has jurisdiction, but also a mission, to punish (...) war crimes (...) regardless of who ordered them or who committed them," said Professor Degan. "I have not yet read the verdict in the Blaskic case and I cannot now comment on it," he asserted adding that there is grounded suspicion that during the 1999 airstrikes against Yugoslavia (Serbia/Montenegro) - whic
ZAGREB, March 3 (Hina) - Professor of international law at Rijeka-
based law school, Vladimir Djuro Degan, on Friday told Hina that the
sentence pronounced today in the Blaskic case was the biggest
challenge for the Prosecution and the International War Crimes
Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
"Contrary to the Nuremberg and Tokyo military tribunals in the wake
of the Second World War, the (Hague-based) ICTY is not a judicial
body established only for punishment of those who have suffered the
defeat in the war. The Hague Tribunal has jurisdiction, but also a
mission, to punish (...) war crimes (...) regardless of who ordered
them or who committed them," said Professor Degan.
"I have not yet read the verdict in the Blaskic case and I cannot now
comment on it," he asserted adding that there is grounded suspicion
that during the 1999 airstrikes against Yugoslavia
(Serbia/Montenegro) - which was legally permissible humanitarian
intervention - NATO forces used some banned kinds of arms and banned
methods for waging the war which, according to the Hague Tribunal's
Statute, presented the violation of laws and customs of the war. The
Tribunal has been directly authorised to punish all who commit
crimes, stipulated in its Statute, in the area of the former
Yugoslavia since the start 1991.
Both the Prosecution and the Tribunal have put themselves in a
difficult position. If the Prosecution fails to launch an
investigation regarding some breaches of the laws and customs of
war done by the NATO force, and if the Tribunal fails to apply the
same criteria for the superior liability for those crimes in case
they are proved as it applied for Blaskic, this will be a serious
blow to the international judiciary as well as to the establishment
of the future permanent international penal tribunal in The Hague,
the Professor added.
Law must be equal for all, either it protects or punishes. Therefore
I advocate equal standards which can be applied to all who really
committed crimes, without any discrimination based on the nature
and the source of the armed conflict. Therefore it seems to me that
the sentence passed today in the Blaskic case is the greatest
challenge to the Prosecution and the ICTY, he said.
(hina) jn ms