Report: Hague court says families can sue UN and Netherlands for Srebrenica massacre

Reuters is reporting that “Families of Srebrenica massacre victims have cleared a legal hurdle in their lawsuit against the Dutch state and the United Nations, which they argue allowed the killing of thousands of Muslims, their lawyers said. A court in the Hague ruled the case could proceed, dismissing pleas by public prosecutors that it should be dropped after the United Nations invoked its legal immunity and said it would not take part. In 1995 Bosnian Serb forces massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica, a town declared a safe area and guarded by a Dutch army unit serving as part of a larger UN force. Lawyer Marco Gerritsen, representing the victims’ families, said on Tuesday the court had supported their argument that the UN could not be granted automatic immunity. ‘The UN has the duty to prevent genocide. An appeal to immunity in a case of genocide, as in the Srebrenica drama, is irreconcilable with the U.N.’s own objectives and its international obligations’, he added in a statement…” The full report is posted here.

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