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50 Int'l & Comp. L.Q. 452 (2001)
Command Responsibility and the Blaskic Case

handle is hein.journals/incolq50 and id is 462 raw text is: 452 International and Comparative Law Quarterly [VOL. 50 Law of the Sea will follow the award's interpretation of Article 281. The case does illustrate that arbitration may not be the best means of addressing UNCLOS disputes. Not only is it very significantly more expensive as a process than going to the ICJ or the ITLOS, but there is, just perhaps, not quite the same institutional commitment to seeing a case through several phases of complex argument. Faced with a merits phase that would turn largely on scientific evidence, and lead only to a negotiated outcome, it is easy to appreciate an ad hoc tribunal's desire to part company quickly with a largely hopeless case that had already been well aired. Moreover, cases such as this are arguably better suited to special arbitration by fisheries experts than by a judicial tribunal with expertise only in legal questions. Caveat piscator. ALAN BOYLE* II. COMMAND RESPONSIBILITY AND THE BLASKIC CASE A. Introduction A disturbing feature of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia was the extent to which civilians were the target of military attacks by all three of the armed forces of the main ethnic communities. It was the military attacks by the armed forces of one of these ethnic communities-the Bosnian Croats (HZHB)-against Bosnian Muslim civilians and associated events in the Lasva Valley region of Central Bosnia from May 1992 to January 1994 that led to the indictment and eventual conviction of General Tihomir Blaskic. The Blaskic case represents an historic decision of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It is the first time since the war crimes trials following the Second World War that a serving General has been found guilty of war crimes.' At the time of the commission of the offences, Blaskic was a Colonel in the armed forces of the Bosnian Croatian Defence Council (HVO)2 and Commander of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone (CBOZ) with his headquarters in the Hotel Vitez.3 He was promoted in August 1994 to the rank of General and was at the same time appointed commander of the HVO with his headquarters in Mostar. Subsequently, in November 1995, he was appointed by the Croatian Government as a General in the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia (HV).4 On 1 April 1996, General Blaskic voluntarily gave himself up to the ICTY, five months after being indicted by the ICTY for war crimes. The pre-trial phase of the case lasted 14 months, during which time the Tribunal rendered a number of * Faculty of Law, University of Edinburgh. 1. See e.g., among these earlier cases U.S.A. v. Von Leeb et al., 11 Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, p.1; and U.S.A. v. Tomoyuki Yamashita, United Nations War Crimes Commission, 4 Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, (1945), p.1. 2. The HVO is the military arm of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna (HZHB). 3. Prosecutor v. Tihomir Blaskic, Case No. IT-95-14-T, decision of 3 March 2000, para. 378. 4. Second Amended Indictment, 25 April 1997, para. 2.

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