by Zoë Pollock
Yesterday, a Dutch appeals court ruled that the Netherlands was responsible for the Bosnian deaths in Srebrenica "because its peacekeepers handed over Bosnian Muslims knowing that their lives would be in danger." David Bosco takes stock of what this means for future UN missions:
States active in peacekeeping might decide that their troops must now be more vigilant about preventing human rights abuses on their watch. The unfortunate reality is that the precedent may simply discourage states from participating. Why send troops into unstable situations and run the risk that your government will be held responsible for atrocities they fail to prevent?
Erik Voeten weighs both sides and offers a defense of the decision:
In general, we believe that legal accountability leads to better behavior and I see little evidence that peacekeeping missions should be different. As it stands, this legal accountability only applies to major violations of international war crimes and humanitarian law. The world does not need more peacekeeping missions where the participants have so little invested that they are not willing to be legally responsible for facilitating genocide.
(Photo: The 610 coffins of the Srebrenica massacre victims are seen prior to the funeral attended by their family members at the Srebrenica Memorial site during the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre on July 11, 2005 in Srebrenica, Bosnia Herzegovina. Some 8,000 Muslims, mostly boys and men, were slaughtered at Srebrenica in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb soldiers who had overrun the eastern town. The killings, in what was then a U.N.-protected zone, came shortly before the end of the country's 1992-95 war. By Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images.)
The Dish 