ICJ rejects NATO bombing case for lack of jurisdiction News
ICJ rejects NATO bombing case for lack of jurisdiction

[JURIST] The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled Wednesday that it could not hear a case brought by Serbia and Montenegro against eight NATO countries – Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands and Portugal – in respect of NATO's 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, then led by President Slobodan Milsoevic, now on trial at The Hague for war crimes. The NATO campaign was undertaken in support of a NATO effort to push the Yugoslav army out of Kosovo, where it was said to be engaged in ethnic cleansing operations against Kosovar Albanians. The court said it had no jurisdiction in the case because the antecedent state of Yugoslavia was not an official UN member in 1999 and was not party to the ICJ statute. The court's ruling is not yet available online. Background material on the litigation is available on the ICJ docket list here. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

No lynchings reported in US for first time

On December 30, 1952, the Tuskegee Institute reported that 1952 was the first year of no lynchings of African Americans in the United States in the 71 years it had kept records. Learn more about lynching and listen to Billie Holiday's jazz recording of the 1938 protest song Strange Fruit.

USSR established

On December 30, 1922, representatives of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Transcaucus approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). During World War II, the USSR would also annex Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Moldova. Learn more about the history of the USSR from the BBC.