Thirteen years after it was first filed, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s case against Serbia and Montenegro for violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention will at last be heard publicly by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations for disputes between States, starting today.

After a second visit to the Russian Federation that included time in the troubled region of Chechnya, the United Nations top human rights official said today in Moscow that she had “very serious concerns” about Chechnya’s law enforcement system.

The first round of direct negotiations between delegations from Albanian-majority Kosovo and Serbia on the future status of the Serbian province found common ground on the issue of decentralization of services, according to the United Nations envoy who chaired the talks, which ended today.

A Bosnian Serb paramilitary leader accused of burning to death scores of Bosnian Muslim men, women and children during that country’s 1992 violence was today taken into custody by the United Nations tribunal charged with bringing the perpetrators of such crimes to justice.