The president of the International Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday that Serbia and Croatia did not commit genocide against each other during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
PARIS — The highest court of the United Nations ruled on Tuesday that neither Croatia nor Serbia committed genocide against each other’s peoples when they waged war during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
The two separate rulings were the result of civil lawsuits that both countries had filed at the court, the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Each claimed the other had violated the Genocide Convention. Croatia, moreover, demanded extensive reparations for war damages.
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Serbia filed a countersuit in 2010 when Croatia would not withdraw its case in The Hague. Serbia said more than 200,000 ethnic Serbs had been forced to flee their homes and ancestral lands when Croatia launched a military campaign in 1995 to retake its territory.
Both governments had said they would accept the verdict, although in both countries resentments still run deep.
