New Lawsuit Necessary: Deadline for Review of BiH's Case Against Serbia Expires in February 2017

Some Sarajevo media outlets are analyzing that this February 2016 marks the deadline for a potential review of Bosnia and Herzegovina's case against Serbia for genocide before the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ).

This cannot be true. The proceedings began on February 27, 2006, and the verdict was delivered on February 26, 2007, writes the Patria News Agency.

Therefore, according to all legal provisions, the deadline is ten years from the verdict, not from the filing of the lawsuit. Bosnia and Herzegovina still has one year to submit a request for a review of the case against Serbia before this most powerful international court in the world. The second problem concerns the possibility of submitting such a request. Namely, the Serbian side within state bodies can always create a problem for the activation of such a lawsuit. 

No one has yet taken steps to open and access the archives of the Supreme Defense Council of Yugoslavia. During the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, 57 sessions were held.

Slobodan Milošević was the only member of the VSO who attended all 74 sessions. By order of the participants, there were no stenographic records from 17 meetings, nine of which were held in 1995, before and after the Srebrenica genocide.

In the past, the permanent members of the VSO were the presidents of the republics, the president of the FRY/Serbia and Montenegro, but by special decision, the Minister of Defense of the FRY and the Commander of the Yugoslav Army, and as needed, other state-political officials of the FRY and the republics, presidents of republican governments, as well as military-police leaders, were invited or involved in the work, not only from the FRY but during the aggression against the Republic of BiH, also military-political leaders from Republika Srpska (RS) Ratko Mladić and others from the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina.

If these documents were declassified, Serbia would undoubtedly face conviction for the genocide in Srebrenica and numerous crimes against humanity.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is obliged to renew the verdict, as the historical guilt of Serbia for the committed crimes was removed by the ordinary political veto of Russia in the United Nations, and the verdict for genocide was practically rejected from entering the history textbooks of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the world.

Serbia's attitude towards the crime of genocide in Srebrenica forces BiH to review the lawsuit.