The entire Yugoslav war is marked by violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), other wise known as the laws of war.  These violations had occurred in all of the six republics of the Former Yugoslavia. The Helsinki Watch, the ICRC and other NGO’s have monitored the Yugoslav War from the beginning and they had witnessed the widespread atrocities committed against civilians from all parties of the conflict. Although IHL was created exactly for the reason of preventing such atrocities from occurring, it relies on the states to enforce and to apply these rules in case of war. In the aftermath of the break of the USSR, a new type of war has emerged. This Intra-state war was characterized by belligerent parties who have no ties to the government committing the fighting.
In many of these wars there was no government to regulate and enforce the rules of law. The question whether the state is still the reliable party to the implementation of IHL in cases where there is a very weak or non active government, was raised many times in relation to intra-state wars, but the fact remains that no matter what the situation is, states are the ones that responsible to protect their civilian population’s human rights and security.
In this essay I will focus on the events that took place in Srebrenica before, during and after its fall in the summer of 1995. I will show the many IHL violations that took place during this short period of time and I will discuss the responsibility of the parties involved: the Serbs, the Bosnians and the U.N peacekeeping force.
IHL main concern is to protect human beings from the devastating affects of all kinds of belligerent activities. Due to the fact that the human race has still not found a way to rid it from wars, the importance of IHL remains as important as it was when it was first established.
Seeing there is a growing awareness to IHL’s role as a tool of promoting universal values, such as protecting human rights, IHL presents the most difficult challenge that the international community faces; the need to create rules and bodies that will protect human beings in wars that are characterized by anarchy and use of violent means, some with the potential of wiping out entire nations.