Addressing the round table debate, organised by a war veteran association from Vukovar, the Croatian Victimology Society, the Croatian Institute of History, and the Homeland Defence War memorial and documentation centre, Victimology Society president and former justice minister Zvonimir Separovic said that this topic was being dealt with in an incompetent and political way and that "the ground is being prepared for the withdrawal of the lawsuit".
He recalled that Croatia had filed the lawsuit with the ICJ against Serbia in 1999 for aggression from 1991 to 1995 and that it is seeking war reparations. According to Separovic, it was a victory for Croatia when in 2008 that chief judicial agency of the United Nations declared its jurisdiction over Croatia's lawsuit against Serbia for violations of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Separovic deems Serbia's counter-suit to be irrelevant.
The head of the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences, Zeljko Horvatic, spoke about the differences between the ICJ and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, both of which were founded by the United Nations.
Horvatic said that the Hague-based ICTY tribunal was operating according to an "awkward and ill-considered merger" of the Anglo-Saxon and Continental legal systems. He also pointed to the policy of former ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who equated cooperation with the tribunal and cooperation with prosecutors, which he said he had "fiercely opposed".
Vukovar war veteran Zoran Sangut also raised his voice against the possibility of quitting the lawsuit. He spoke about concentration camps in Serbia, which that country denied, as it would admit to its responsibility and would have to pay war damages if it admitted to the existence of those camps on its soil.
Sangut also wondered, against the background of Serbia's accusations against war veteran Tihomir Purda, who had given his confession under duress in those camps, whether Serbia would prosecute anybody for crimes committed at those camps.
Participants in the round table discussion could sign a letter against the withdrawal of Croatia's lawsuit against Serbia, which will be forwarded to Croatian President and Prime Minister.