The testimony of the first witness, University of London war studies professor James Gow, is important for establishing the elements of some of the crimes with which Dusko Tadic is charged. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 were originally agreements among states to behave when they went to war against each other. But the law only applies when the acts are committed by persons linked to a party of a conflict or an occupying power against persons protected by the Conventions. Thats one of the questions the prosecution is trying to answer through Gow's testimony. Under the Geneva Conventions, protected persons are defined as prisoners of war and civilians who, in the event of a conflict or an occupation, find themselves in the hands of a party to the conflict or occupying power of which they are not nationals.
Lets say the United States goes to war against Mexico.
But Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia is a more complicated question. The issue of nationality is a mixed question of law and fact to be answered at trial, according to prosecutors in the Tadic case. Gow says Serbia destroyed Yugoslavia. He sees the raw nationalism of the Serbian people and the lust for power of Slobodan Milosevic as the driving force behind the break-up of the country, the start of the war and the perpetration of war crimes. Gow says the war in Bosnia was launched and directed by the military and political leadership in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and of the new Yugoslavia.