GERMAN EXPERT COMMENTS ON HAGUE TRIBUNAL

SPLIT, Aug 13 (Hina) - Split-Dalmatia County Prefect Branimir Luksic, on Wednesday received an eminent German expert on international law, Professor Herwig Roggemann, long-standing head of Berlin University's eastern Europe institute. After his talks with Luksic and other county officials, Roggemann spoke to reporters about his position on the role of the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The German professor said that indictments issued by the Hague Tribunal were, according to many other experts, without firm foundation, and explained it ensued, first of all, from the fact that the United Nations Charter did not provide the penal competency of an international court. According to him, the UN Security Council resolution (827) under which the International War Crimes Tribunal (or ICTY) was founded and on which indictments were based, went beyond frameworks of the UN Charter. Roggemann favoured the establishment of a permanent war crimes tribunal, and there are suggestions that it should be founded in Rome next year. He said that such a court should act on the basis of an international convention accepted by countries. Commenting on a subpoena duces tecum (issued by the Hague tribunal to Croatia), the German expert said that Croatia just like any other State had the legitimate right to self-protection, and that judges of the Hague Tribunal, who issued such a compulsory order to Croatia, knew very well that documents they demanded from Croatia would not be handed over to them by the United States, France or some other country. He explained that the grounds for such compulsory order could be found neither in the Dayton peace accords nor in the Croatian national legislation nor in any other bilateral treaty. He stressed that the international tribunal must take into account who was an aggressor and who was exposed to aggression and that aggressors and their victims could not be treated in the same way. (hina) mš 131752 MET aug 97