NATO Immunity on Trial: The Pavković Family's Lawsuit

Prof. Dr Srđan Aleksić, who collaborates with Legal Smart, is the lawyer for the Pavković family and represents other claimants in Serbian depleted uranium proceedings.

The case rests on the laboratory findings described in our previous article: uranium and heavy metals in tumour tissue taken from the general about twenty years before his death. But its legal importance reaches far beyond one family. It puts before a Serbian court, in the most visible form possible, the question that has blocked every claim against the Alliance since the first was filed in January 2021: can NATO be sued at all, or does NATO immunity close the courtroom door before a single piece of evidence is heard?

What the lawsuit asks about NATO immunity

According to the family’s Italian lawyer, Angelo Fiore Tartaglia, the claim asks the Belgrade court to open the question of NATO’s civil-law responsibility for the consequences of its 1999 operations, in particular the long-term chemical, radiological and environmental risks of depleted uranium munitions. He told Serbian media that NATO’s actions created “a real risk of malignant disease” for people in the areas where General Pavković moved during the war, and that the lawsuit is an attempt “to remove that immunity of the Alliance”, Kosovo Online reported.

The idea came from the family’s Serbian lawyer, Prof. Dr Srđan Aleksić, who contacted the general while he was still alive. According to Marija Pavković, her father wanted the case pursued, and she later signed the power of attorney. Mr Tartaglia brings experience from Italy, where, he says, he has succeeded in some 550 cases brought by Italian soldiers who served with KFOR in Kosovo and later fell ill.

Can NATO be sued? The law behind the immunity

International organisations are generally immune from the jurisdiction of national courts. The rule exists so that an organisation created by many states cannot be pulled into the courts of any one of them. For NATO, the basis in its member states is the Agreement on the status of NATO, signed in Ottawa on 20 September 1951, which protects the organisation and its property from “every form of legal process” unless the immunity is expressly waived. It is functional immunity, attached to the organisation, not the personal diplomatic immunity of an ambassador, though the two are often confused.

Serbia, however, is not a NATO member and is not a party to that agreement. A Serbian court must therefore decide on what basis, and to what extent, immunity applies to an organisation that carried out military operations on Serbian territory without the consent of the state. That is a genuinely open question of international law, and it is one reason the case attracts attention beyond Serbia. Prof. Aleksić has argued, as Politika reported in 2024, that immunity cannot release NATO from responsibility for grave violations of international law. In earlier Serbian cases NATO has invoked its immunity, and no court has yet ruled finally on the point.

Empty courtroom with legal documents awaiting judicial review in a case concerning NATO immunity

Route to a remedy	Defendant	Where it stands
Claims against NATO	NATO	Filed since 2021; immunity invoked; the Pavković case adds a prominent claimant
Claims against Serbia	Republic of Serbia, as successor to Yugoslavia	First-instance wins in Pančevo (2025) and Vršac (2026)
Italian model	Italian state	Hundreds of final judgments for soldiers, according to the lawyers involved
Possible international claim	Finland	Announced as an option by the family and its lawyer

The routes that have already worked

While the NATO claims wait, Serbian courts have begun to give claimants a remedy by another route. In March 2025 the Basic Court in Pančevo found the Republic of Serbia liable for failing to protect a former reservist, Zoran Karišik, and recognised a causal link between his military service and his illness, ICBUW reported. In 2026 courts in Vršac ruled for Dragan Antić, ICBUW reported. In both cases the defendant was Serbia, as the legal successor of Yugoslavia, and both claimants were represented by Prof. Aleksić.

These rulings matter for the Pavković case, and for the debate on NATO immunity, in two ways. They show that Serbian courts are prepared to examine scientific and medical evidence of depleted uranium exposure on its merits. And they show that the factual question, whether exposure in 1999 caused illness years later, can be answered in a Serbian courtroom. What remains is the question of who must answer for it.

An American precedent

The United States faced the same wall with its own citizens. In 1984 a federal judge in Utah, in Allen v. United States, found the government negligent towards people living downwind of its Nevada nuclear tests, for failing to monitor their exposure and to inform them of the risks. In 1987 an appeals court reversed the judgment, holding that the government was immune. One of the judges, while agreeing, noted that the decision left the victims without compensation. Three years later Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, apologised on behalf of the nation and paid compensation without requiring individual proof of causation. Today the Justice Department pays eligible downwinders $100,000 each. The full story is told in Legal Smart’s report on America’s downwinders.

The lesson is not that the Serbian case will follow the same path. It is that immunity has, in the past, been a stage in the history of such claims rather than its end. When courts were closed by immunity, governments found other ways to recognise the harm.

Lawyers reviewing case documents and legal arguments concerning NATO immunity and depleted uranium claims

The question of Finland

The family has also raised the care General Pavković received while he was in Finland. His daughter has said that for months he received no diagnosis and only painkillers, Kosovo Online reported. By the time he was released early on humanitarian grounds in September 2025, medical reports described an incurable illness in an advanced stage. Prof. Aleksić has said that, if the family agrees, a claim may be brought invoking the European Convention on Human Rights and the rights to life, health and humane treatment.

The claim and the wider question

The lawsuit concerns General Pavković’s illness, and that illness is the same one that soldiers, police officers and reservists who served under his command, and residents of every community in Kosovo and Metohija, have described for years. A ruling on NATO immunity in his case will apply equally to all of them.

What comes next

The Second Basic Court will first have to decide whether it has jurisdiction over NATO at all. If it holds that NATO immunity applies, the family may appeal, and the question may eventually reach Serbia’s higher courts or international bodies. If it holds that NATO immunity does not apply, the court will move to the evidence, and the depleted uranium question will be heard against the organisation that fired the rounds for the first time. Either way, the case will be watched in Italy, in the region and in every country where depleted uranium has been used.

Frequently asked questions

When and where was the Pavković lawsuit filed?

On 19 June 2026, in the Second Basic Court in Belgrade, according to Kosovo Online. The family is represented by Prof. Dr Srđan Aleksić, working with the Italian lawyer Angelo Fiore Tartaglia. The claim runs to about 1,000 pages.

Can NATO be sued?

In its member states NATO is protected by the 1951 Ottawa Agreement, which shields it from every form of legal process unless it waives immunity. Serbia is not a member and not a party, so a Serbian court must decide what immunity, if any, applies. No court has yet ruled finally.

Does NATO have diplomatic immunity?

NATO has functional immunity as an international organisation, set out by treaty for its member states, rather than the personal diplomatic immunity of ambassadors. Its scope in a non-member state that was the target of its operations is the open question in the Pavković case.

Have Serbian courts ruled in depleted uranium cases?

Yes. In Pančevo (2025) and Vršac (2026) courts ruled for claimants against the Republic of Serbia, which, as successor to Yugoslavia, owed a duty to protect them. Claims against NATO itself are still pending.

Could there be a case against Finland?

The family and its lawyer have said they may bring an international claim over General Pavković’s medical care while he was in Finland, invoking the rights to life, health and humane treatment under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Who is Srđan Aleksić?

Prof. Dr Srđan Aleksić is a lawyer from Niš, Serbia, and the author of Projektili pravde (2024) and Ecocide in International and National Criminal Law (2025). For more than two decades he has gathered evidence for people who fell ill after the 1999 bombing, and he represented the claimants in Serbia’s first court rulings in their favour.

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A General’s Family Sues NATO: The Pavković Case and the Question of Immunity

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