8 July 2011

Dual attribution: liability of the Netherlands for removal of individuals from the compound of Dutchbat

On 5 July 2011, the Court of Appeal of the Hague decided that the State of the Netherlands had acted unlawfully and is liable for evicting Bosnian nationals from the compound of Dutchbat in Srebrenica on 12 July 1995. Ibro Nuhanovic, Muhamed  Nuhanovic, Nasiha Nuhanovic and Rizo Mustafic were subsequently killed by Bosnian Serbs, as part of what the ICTY and the ICJ later found to be acts of genocide.

The decision adds another chapter to the tortuous attempt of the Netherlands to cope with its multiple failures, with dramatic consequences, in its policies and decisions regarding the conduct of Dutch peacekeeping troops in Srebrenica in 1995, In 2002, the Government of then prime minister Wim Kok resigned after a report held it partly to blame for the failure to offer protection in Srebenica. At the time, Kok said that he accepted political, but no legal responsibility. Almost ten years later, the Court of Appeal has made clear that the responsibility is not only political, but that the Dutch policy in regard of Srebrenica also has engaged its legal liability. (more…)

7 July 2011

Expert Seminar on Shared Responsibility in International Refugee Law – In Search for a Legal Basis of Burden-Sharing

Do States – and other subjects of international law – have a collective obligation to protect refugees? And if this is the case, does a breach of this obligation lead to shared international responsibility? At a time when the burdens and responsibilities that flow from massive displacement of people have been distributed so unevenly among the world’s regions and countries (see UNHCR Global Trends 2010), these two questions have attracted growing interest and were discussed at the Expert Seminar on Shared Responsibility in International Refugee Law that the SHARES Project organized on 30 May 2011 (see Programme). (more…)