The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on Thursday 23 May 2024, establishing an annual International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica, on 11 July, with 84 countries voting for the resolution and 19 voting against. Another 68 countries abstained, while 22 did not vote.

Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica, a UN-protected enclave at the time, on 11 July 11, 1995, a few months before the end of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s civil war. Over 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed in and around Srebrenica in July 1995 after Bosnian Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic overran the town.

The resolution, proposed by Germany and Rwanda and co-sponsored by more than 30 countries, including all former Yugoslav republics except Serbia and Montenegro, designate 11 July as “the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica, to be observed annually”.

It also “condemns without reservation” any denial of the Srebrenica genocide as a historical event as well as actions that glorify those convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by international courts, including those responsible for the Srebrenica genocide”.

In addition to establishing the memorial day, the resolution condemns “any denial” of the genocide and urges UN member countries to “preserve the established facts”.

During the 1990s, it was asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of the Bosnian Serb army was genocide confirmed by a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly and three convictions for genocide in German courts (the convictions were based upon a wider interpretation of genocide than that used by international courts). 

The Srebrenica massacre was found to be an act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, a finding upheld by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

On 24 March 2016, former Bosnian Serb leader and the first president of the Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, war crimes, and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

In 2009, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the European Union’s executive authorities to commemorate 11 July as a day of remembrance and mourning of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, explicitly recognized as such with reference to the ICJ decision.

The resolution also reiterated a number of findings including the number of victims as “more than 8000 Muslim men and boys” executed and “nearly 25000 women, children and elderly people were forcibly deported, making this event the biggest war crime to take place in Europe since the end of the Second World War”.