ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and looks at the ways in which this court contributes to determine the accountability through advancing the development of norms of international law. It argues that the court exercises its judicial functions free of political influence and that indeed it has made a significant contribution to the area of accountability for war crimes. The Nikolic case is one of sixty-one completed cases brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). This tribunal, together with other ad hoc tribunals, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) has been responsible for handling matters of international humanitarian law and determining individual accountability for international crimes. The genocide convention was drafted in the aftermath of the Nuremberg Trials and the mantra espoused at Nuremberg was, Crimes against international law are committed by men not abstract entities.
