Proving Genocide in Court. Insights from the Bosnian Genocide Case at the International Court of Justice (PDF)

Essay from the year 2022 in the subject Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, grade: 71, University of East London, course: International Criminal Law, language: English, abstract: This essay seeks to define the crime of genocide and assess the difficulty of proving it in court through a case study of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Judgments in the Bosnian Genocide Case. The commentary provides a critical examination on the crime of genocide, as well as a comprehensive discussion on its legal framework and analytical note on the essential elements of the crime of genocide. The discussion will next analyze the implications of the court's view on the prosecution and conviction of the crime of genocide, using the case study of the Bosnian Genocide Case before the ICJ as an illustration. Finally, the commentary will suggest some potential answers to the difficulty of establishing the crime of genocide before concluding. The argument advanced throughout the essay is that most horrible atrocities committed without "genocidal intent" will almost always fall short of the legal definition of genocide, therefore making it practically impossible to hold anyone accountable for the crime of genocide.