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Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
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In this regard, the Secretary-General receieved communications from the following State on the date indicated hereinafter:
Bosnia-Herzegovina (27 December 2001):
On 21 March 2001 the Secretary-General of the United Nations confirmed to the Permanent Representative of Yugoslavia to the United Nations the receipt of a 'Notification of Accession to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). The note of the Secretary -General carries reference as: LA 41 TR/221/1(4-1).
The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina objects to the deposition of this instrument of accession.
On 29 June 2001, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of Slovenia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia signed an "Agreement on Succession Issues" in which these States, among other things, declare that they are "in sovereign equality the five successor States to the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". A copy of the Agreement is enclosed. [Copy not reproduced herein.] For this reason, there can e no question of "accession", but rather there is an issue of succession. This, in itself, implies that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has effectively succeeded the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as of 27 April 1992 (the date of the proclamation of the FRY) as a Party to the Genocide Convention.
Apart from that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia upon its proclamation on 27 April 1992 declared - and communicated this to the Secretary-General that it would "strictly abide by all the commitments that the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia assumed internationally"(UN Doc. A/46/915).
For these two reasons it is not possible for the FRY to effectively lay down a reservation with regards to part of the Genocide Convention (i.e. Article IX of the Convention) several years after 27 April 1992, the day on which FRY became bound to the Genocide Convention in its entirety. Bosnia and Herzegovina refers to Articles 2 (1) (d) and 19 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which explicitly states that a reservation may only be formulated "when signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to a treaty".
The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina therefore deems the so-called "Notification of Accession to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)" submitted by the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to be null and void. Moreover, the International Court of Justice declared in its Judgement of 11 July 1996, "Yugoslavia was bound by the provisions of the Convention" at least at the date of the filing of the Application in the case introduced by Bosnia and Herzegovina on 20 March 1993/ICJ Rep. 1996, p.610, para. 17). The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia continues to be bound under the same conditions, that is without any reservation."
Ratification / Accession
29.12.1992
Succession
29.12.1992
Reservation / Declaration
27.12.2001