Will Bosnia Seek to “Revise” the ICJ’s Bosnia Genocide Judgment?

According to this report, the Bosnian government is considering an application to the ICJ “for revision of a judgment,” under Article 61 of the ICJ Statute. This action is being considered because of the continued furor over missing or redacted Serbian government documents that may have established Serbia’s liability for genocide. (see my posts below for more background)

An Article 61 revision “may be made only when it is based upon the discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, which fact was, when the judgment was given, unknown to the Court and also to the party claiming revision, always provided that such ignorance was not due to negligence.”

I suppose the argument for Bosnia here would be: We’ve discovered that a key “fact” (the documents supposedly withheld by Serbia) that would be decisive to the outcome. These facts were unknown to us and the Court.

There are a few problems here for this argument, though. Are the “missing” or “concealed” documents really a new fact or simply an old fact that was unavailable at the time. Even if they are a new fact, are they decisive? And were such facts really unknown to the Court and Bosnia at the time of the judgment.

Still, it might be worth a shot, provided that the “missing” or “concealed” documents are as decisive as Bosnia seems to think. If they ever get their hands on these documents, they have to work fast though- Article 61 requires that Bosnia file its application within 6 months of their “discovery” of the new facts. When the clock starts ticking is a bit unclear, but it could start any minute.