A panel of 17 judges dismissed a Serbian challenge to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) competence to hear Croatia’s complaint, a date for which will now be set and may take years to reach finality.

“The court … by ten votes to seven finds that … the court has the jurisdiction to entertain the application by the Republic of Croatia,” said presiding judge Rosalyn Higgins in The Hague.

The ruling paves the way for only the second genocide case to be brought before the ICJ, Serbia also having been the subject of the previous claim filed by Bosnia.

Croatia hailed Tuesday’s ruling, while Serbia said it was considering various responses.

“A future in this region cannot be built until we face with the past and those who are guilty face justice,” said Croatia’s parliamentary speaker Luka Bebic.

In Belgrade, Serbian justice minister Snezana Malovic said: “Along with presenting its defence, (Serbia) is considering the possibility of an out-of-court settlement but also the possibility of lodging a counter-complaint” against Croatia.

Serbia claims that more than 200,000 Serbs fled Croatia during a 1995 Croatian military operation to regain territory held by rebel Serbs.

Both states, added Malovic, should take into account the need for “reconciliation in the region”.

Croatia lodged a complaint against Serbia, then known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), with the ICJ in 1999, claiming “a form of genocide which resulted in large numbers of Croatian citizens being displaced, killed, tortured, or illegally detained as well as extensive property destruction”.

But Serbia argued before the court in May that it had no jurisdiction to hear the case over alleged crimes committed during the 1991-95 Croatian war that claimed some 20,000 lives.

Serbia contended the FRY had not been a member of the UN nor a party to its convention on the prevention of genocide on the date Croatia’s complaint was filed.

And it said the majority of the crimes outlined in the complaint were committed before the current Serbian republic was formed.

The judges found that the FRY, Serbia in effect, had voluntarily assumed the rights and obligations of its pre-disintegration predecessor, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), including its accession to international treaties like the genocide convention.

Croatia’s core complaint could not be heard before a decision had been made on Belgrade’s objection to the court’s jurisdiction.

Last year, the same tribunal cleared Belgrade of genocide in Bosnia during the break-up of the former Yugoslav federation. It judged the 1995 massacre of thousands of men and boys at Srebrenica in Bosnia to have been an act of genocide, without attributing direct responsibility to Serbia.

For its part, Croatia seeks punishment for war criminals, reparations for victims, and an order for the recovery of cultural treasures it claims were pillaged during the war.

Ivan Simonovic, the lead Croatian lawyer on the case, said he was “very satisfied” with the judgment.

A hearing of the case, he said, should shed light on information lost with the death in 2006 of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic while awaiting trial for war crimes and genocide before the UN’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.

“We are not launching these proceedings to live in the past but to build healthy foundations for the sustainable future of the region,” said Simonovic.

He said he expected Croatia’s case to be heard in about three years’ time.