Bosnian Genocide - United Nations

United Nations

On 18 December 1992, the United Nations General Assembly resolution 47/121 in its preamble deemed ethnic cleansing to be a form of genocide stating:

Gravely concerned about the deterioration of the situation in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina owing to intensified aggressive acts by the Serbian and Montenegrin forces to acquire more territories by force, characterized by a consistent pattern of gross and systematic violations of human rights, a burgeoning refugee population resulting from mass expulsions of defenceless civilians from their homes and the existence in Serbian and Montenegrin controlled areas of concentration camps and detention centres, in pursuit of the abhorrent policy of “ethnic cleansing”, which is a form of genocide, ... —United Nations General Assembly.

On 12 July 2007, in its judgement on the Jorgić v. Germany case, the European Court of Human Rights noted that:

the ICTY, in its judgments in the cases of Prosecutor v. Krstić and Prosecutor v. Kupreškić, expressly disagreed with the wide interpretation of the 'intent to destroy' as adopted by the UN General Assembly and the German courts. Referring to the principle of nullum crimen sine lege, the ICTY considered that genocide, as defined in public international law, comprised only acts aimed at the physical or biological destruction of a protected group. —European Court of Human Rights.