Remembrance Day for No One?
The Legacy of the UN Resolution on the Srebrenica Day of Remembrance
Commemoration tends to fail, and memorial days often lead to disappointment. The “International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica,” enshrined in UN Resolution A/78/L.67/Rev.1, has become a global trigger for outrage. This does little to help the survivors; however, it explicitly demands everyone else to commit to remembrance. The Resolution leads to specific challenges on three levels – and on each one, failure is foreseeable.
In July 1995, Bosnian-Serb troops captured Srebrenica, a United Nations-protected, demilitarized “safe area” in eastern Bosnia, and systematically killed at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. This multi-day massacre of Muslim Bosnians, recognized as genocide, is one of the worst war crimes in Europe since World War II. This is the scale of a crime whose remembrance is marked by ignorance and neglect in the West and is systematically opposed in the region. In the midst of the tense discussions about the accusation of a current genocide in the Gaza Strip by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, a UN resolution was passed in May to express recognition and compassion for the suffering of the victims of a past and judicially confirmed genocide. Germany and Rwanda led the negotiations. Eighty-four countries voted in favor. In addition to the 19 votes against (including Serbia, Russia, and China), 68 countries abstained. Hungary was the only EU member state to oppose the resolution. Thus, the number of countries that supported the resolution was just under half of the participants. However, the resolution’s adoption was based on a simple majority rather than an absolute majority. The international remembrance day will therefore take place starting on July 11, 2025 – the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.
The resolution, however, threatens to become a Pyrrhic victory, potentially representing a failure in three different aspects:
Locally: The Victims’ Associations in Srebrenica
In Srebrenica itself, the resolution is expected to have very limited impact. On one hand, it acknowledges the Bosniak suffering, a victory for the victims striving to be heard in Srebrenica. On the other hand, Srebrenica remains what it has been since the war: a small town in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, disconnected from Sarajevo, without visitors, and without prospects. The victims’ associations welcomed the resolution’s adoption but were more preoccupied with explaining the Serbian falsehoods and misinterpretations of the voting behavior (especially regarding the 68 abstentions) than fully experiencing the international dignity of the resolution’s decision. Furthermore, UN resolutions are merely recommendations without legal binding; they do not entail concrete financial support. Additionally, there were the brusque reactions from the political establishment in the Bosnian entity Republika Srpska. One response from Serbian local politics: Why not simply rename Srebrenica? What first seems like a satirical provocation gains seriousness considering that opinions on the reality of the genocide are highly polarized even in Srebrenica – so much so that even the Serbian mayor, Mladen Grujičić, denies the genocide and blames the commemoration for the town’s economic failure.
By order of the former High Representative Valentin Inzko, an amendment was implemented in Bosnia’s criminal law in 2021. Article 145a of the Bosnian Criminal Code received five additional paragraphs criminalizing the denial and glorification of internationally condemned genocides (without explicitly naming Srebrenica). However, law and practice diverge, as the new provision is practically never applied. The lack of prosecutions does not stem from a lack of genocide denials or glorifications. On the contrary, images of the former Serbian commander Ratko Mladić (now convicted as a war criminal by MICT – the successor to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) can still be seen along the roadsides of Republika Srpska, where Srebrenica is located; not to mention the annual congratulatory messages and press releases on Mladić’s birthday. In Srebrenica itself, there are unusually few references to the genocide – not a single street or square is named after the genocide or its victims. The memorial plaques in the town often exclusively commemorate the killed Serbs and Serbian survivors who “suffered under Muslim criminals.” The fact that from 2025 onwards, more symposia and workshops will be held at universities worldwide on July 11 will foreseeably not change this situation.
In the Region: Institutionalized Nationalism
The adoption of the resolution in the UN General Assembly further exacerbates ethnic tensions in the region and is significantly instrumentalized by the governments in Banja Luka and Belgrade to draw international attention. In a classic reversal of perpetrator and victim roles, post-colonially trained arguments are used to emphasize the historical insignificance of the violent acts discussed, while simultaneously showcasing their own importance based on the votes against and abstentions from the resolution. Even though the UN resolution does not mention Serbia, the government-affiliated newspaper Srpski Telegraf reported on the vote by arguing that “The world stood by Serbia.” Bosnian-Serb presidency member Milorad Dodik and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, the purported representatives of Serbian interests, use the UN resolution and the growing interest in Srebrenica for further destabilization in the Balkans. The “Pandora’s box,” as Vučić calls the Srebrenica issue, is being opened by themselves. Instead of addressing the bloody history in the Balkans, Serbian politics focuses on self-victimization, nationalism, and secession. Vučić uses this rhetoric deliberately: with the Serbian flag draped over his shoulders, he participates in the resolution vote and afterwards (along with the Serbian press) emphasizes that Serbia is not a genocidal nation – which the resolution does not claim. The resolution would allegedly make international recognition of a sovereign Republika Srpska impossible, impose collective guilt, and damage Serbia’s reputation. This also serves to divert attention from economic problems to historical narratives. For instance, the issue that Belgrade is still the largest European city without a metro cannot be as effectively used in election campaigns as the alleged collective guilt of the Serbian people for the Srebrenica genocide. The victim-centered resolution does not contain a single reference to Serbia, but rather individualizes only the main perpetrators.
However, Serbian reactions must be understood without legitimizing them. The German universalism of a normatively oriented culture of remembrance, which (so far) has helped prevent the resurgence of fascism through self-stigmatization, is only limitedly transferable. Serbian remembrance focuses on their own victims caused by hostile forces from the Ottomans to NATO. This remembrance does not include the possibility of critiquing past actions to strengthen current democracy. Serbia uses its own memory culture in foreign policy to legitimize skepticism towards hostile powers and to strengthen alliances, while internally it serves as a source of Serbian national pride. The demand to dethrone not only their own heroes but also supposedly do so for their own good goes too far for Serbian politics. This paternalism is met with defiance, trying to prove the (German) universalism’s own particularism – and thereby legitimizing their own particularism. Thus, it appears to some parts of the world as an imposition that Germany and Rwanda play the role of teachers simply because they transformed the singularity of their own stigma into an audacious charisma of guilt (Lipp 2010). Germans have become accustomed to being proud not of their own history but of their historical processing. However, this requires insight – and that cannot be prescribed.
Internationally: Pandora’s Box
Remembrance is always particular. In the international arena, this means that the remembrance practice of one part seems to imply the forgetting of the other. The call to remember the victims of one is simultaneously perceived as inadmissible selectivity. Especially since throughout the calendar year, according to the official UN calendar, one memorial day follows another. On December 9, we already remember the victims of the crime of genocide, and on August 22, the victims of violence due to religion or belief – not to mention Human Rights Day, the Day for the Right to Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations, or the Day of Conscience. The fact that Srebrenica now also receives its own memorial day seems in need of justification. We already struggle almost daily with the requirements of the existing memorial days: Hardly anyone can sufficiently honor the existing nine official memorial days in the UN calendar.
But the anniversary exerts a coercive force that increases the moral cost of disregard; Srebrenica, in its specific singularity, presents the world community with the task of eternal remembrance precisely because of its singularity. The failure of the Blue Helmets to prevent the deportation and subsequent murder of more than 8,000 civilians within their own safe zone is a pressing reason for never-ending reckoning. Vučić warns of Pandora’s box, fearing that demands for more memorial days and thus further political chaos might arise, but he rather expresses concern that Serbian suffering receives too little international attention instead of voicing a well-founded worry.
Those who believe that the General Assembly’s interest in Srebrenica today will translate into local events will likely be disappointed. It is doubtful that this will be different in a year. Since all UN organizations, other international and regional organizations, and civil society, including NGOs, academic institutions, and relevant stakeholders, are invited to participate in the commemoration, the ignorance will only become more excruciating, whether from the international community or Serbian politics. Often it is not even active silence but rather ignorance of their own unawareness, which turns the demanded high jump into a moral limbo. The bar of remembrance is not raised but bypassed.
Are We Up to the Challenge?
The question of whether to organize excursions to Verdun or Srebrenica, whether D-Day or the June 17 uprising deserves a day of remembrance, is a false problem. Rather, the hope is that an awareness of the atrocities and deaths will foster a resilience that strengthens democracy in Europe (and beyond) against various political upheavals. Ignorance is the precursor to denial, and this must be prevented. It is the hope that the readers of this article take up this provocation and at least prevent the failure of point three (namely that of the international community).
Remembrance is a challenge that can also be tedious. It seems backward-looking and unproductive. As Adorno polemically put it against the hypocritical claim of forgetting: “Whoever doesn’t entertain any idle thoughts doesn’t throw any wrenches into the machinery” (Adorno 1979, 568). The mayor’s argument that Srebrenica must be renamed to avoid deterring investors due to its historical burden falls short. The town’s economic problems result not from an alleged stigma to be eradicated but from ongoing tensions between Serbs and Bosniaks that hinder economic cooperation. The solution lies not in forgetting but in education and promoting dialogue and reconciliation to achieve sustainable economic progress.
For Europe and the entire world community, Srebrenica should not be a burdensome imposition but a dignified task to find the foundations for future cooperation through respect for the victims and building a (European) collectively shared historical consciousness. Srebrenica is not simply the failure of a single nation but the failure of the United Nations. The eternal commitment to democracy and the rule of law, conditioned for Germany through the constant processing of Holocaust history, can take place for the world community through the reckoning of the genocides in Srebrenica and Rwanda.
The narrative among the survivors of genocide victims remains the same despite the resolution: No one cares about Srebrenica. Starting today, there is one year to prove otherwise. Commemoration can take forms that convey a sense of genuine help to the victims. For the record: this includes more than a moment of silence in the German Parliament. Calls for donations, excursions, educational opportunities on site, providing platforms for artists and writers – these are just some suggestions to fully realize the resolution’s potential.

Tim Huyeng is a research associate at the Forschungskolleg normative Gesellschaftsgrundlagen and a lecturer in sociology at the University of Bonn. He is writing his doctoral thesis on informal institutions and corruption in Croatia.

Selin Schumacher is a student assistant at the Forschungskolleg normative Gesellschaftsgrundlagen and studies law at the University of Bonn. She is currently attending a summer school in Srebrenica.