How did Dutch courts determine the Netherlands' responsibility for some deaths at Srebrenica?

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Two women in headscarves embrace and mourn over a green coffin among rows of identical coffins at the Potocari cemetery during the Srebrenica massacre mass funeral. — Srebrenica genocide Women mourning over a coffin before the mass funeral for 136 newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, 2015.

Dutch courts determined the Netherlands’ legal responsibility for deaths at Srebrenica by focusing on the actions of its peacekeeping forces operating under a UN mandate.

In 2011, an appeals court ruled the state liable for the deaths of three Bosniak men who were forced out of a UN compound by Dutch troops and subsequently killed. This was a landmark decision, as it was the first time a country was held liable for the actions of its peacekeepers under a UN mission.1

In 2014, a court further found the Dutch government liable for the deaths of more than 300 Bosniak men and boys, ruling that surviving relatives were entitled to compensation. However, in 2017, an appellate court limited this liability, ruling that the Netherlands was responsible for only 30 percent of the financial damages. The court reasoned that there was a 70 percent probability that the Bosnian Serbs would have captured the refugees regardless of the Dutch peacekeepers' actions.1