Dutch court allows Srebrenica lawsuit against UN, Netherlands to proceed
A court in the Netherlands ruled Tuesday that the families of approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslims who were killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre [BBC timeline; JURIST news archive] can proceed with their class action lawsuit [JURIST report; case backgrounder] against the United Nations and the Netherlands filed June 4, according to lawyer Marco Gerritsen, who represents approximately 6,000 family members of victims in the lawsuit. Gerritsen said the court ruled the case can proceed in spite of the UN's claim of immunity [JURIST report; press briefing transcript] under Article 2 Section 2 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations [PDF text], which says that the UN's property and assets "shall enjoy immunity from every form of legal process except it has expressly waived its immunity." The thousands of Srebrenica survivors who filed the lawsuit allege that both the Netherlands and the UN are liable for their failure to protect civilians, many of whom were refugees that relocated to the Srebrenica enclave declared [S/Res 819, PDF] to be a "safe area" by the UN Security Council in 1993.
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