THE HAGUE Among the unfinished business left by the death of Slobodan Milosevic is the central question of whether he was guilty, as charged, of genocide in Bosnia.
But while his death brought a sudden end to his trial at the UN war crimes tribunal here, the genocide issue is very much alive. It may well be decided by another UN court based in The Hague: the International Court of Justice.
That court, also known as the World Court, recently finished nine weeks of hearings on a case filed 13 years ago, in the middle of the Bosnian war.
With Muslim villages under attack and civilians driven into detention camps, Bosnia's lawyers turned to the court, accusing Yugoslavia of violations "on all counts" of the UN Convention on Genocide. The case was held back by the slow-paced institution and by repeated legal moves from Belgrade to block it. In the meantime, Yugoslavia became Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, and in May simply Serbia...
Should the court rule in Bosnia's favor, the Serbian state will suffer the stigma of having committed genocide, an outcome that would implicate the entire Milosevic government.
For Serb citizens and their fledgling economy, that could mean also being saddled with hefty war reparations. Bosnia has asked the court to award damages for the loss of life and property.
During the war, 100,000 people died, the majority of them Muslims, and entire Muslim towns and villages were destroyed, including their mosques and monuments. No figure was set.
Serbia has argued that there were excesses of war but no genocidal campaign, that Belgrade did not control events in Bosnia and that a verdict favoring Bosnia will make reconciliation even more difficult. Bosnia says the opposite, and argues it needs "recognition of Serb guilt" even more than reparations.