On the Non-Attribution of the Bosnian Serbs' Conduct to Serbia

In the judgment concerning the Genocide Convention, the InternationalCourt of Justice (ICJ) holds that different tests could be appliedin order to determine (i) the degree of a state's involvementin an armed conflict on another state's territory that is requiredfor the conflict to be characterized as international and (ii)the degree of a state's involvement that is required for thatstate to be held responsible for a specific act that occurredin the course of the conflict. This article discusses this holding.In particular, it analyses whether by excluding attributionto the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) of the actsof genocide committed by the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS), the ICJhas precluded the possibility of considering the 1992–1995conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an international armedconflict.