Denial of genocide and other war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its impact on violation of human rights

Since the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) ended in 1995, hundreds of people have been found guilty by international, domestic and foreign courts, of various war crimes, including the most terrible crime of the genocide in Srebrenica. Nevertheless, in the past three decades, examples have been continuously registered in public sphere of denying, minimising and approving these crimes. It is especially dangerous that the denial of these crimes takes an institutional form. These denialist practices are primarily encountered in the BiH's entity Republika Srpska (RS) and neighbouring Serbia, as well as in Montenegro and North Macedonia. In 2021, the High Representative in BiH, imposed amendments to the Criminal Code of BiH, by which he criminalised the denial of genocide and other war crimes. Unfortunately, the criminalisation of denying these crimes did not stop the deniers. Although over 100 criminal charges have been reported, the Prosecutor's Office of BiH has filed only two charges, but none of the reported persons have been convicted to date. This article criticises this kind of prosecution practice. The article’s aim is to investigate the ways, in which certain political elites deny the genocide and other war crimes in BiH, as well as to analyse the prosecution of deniers before the BiH criminal justice authorities. The author attempts to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the dominant ways of denying genocide and other war crimes in the public sphere, and who are the most frequent deniers? (2) How has the denial of these crimes been criminalised, and do the competent courts in BiH prosecute the deniers? (3) What is the possible impact of denying these crimes on the human rights and freedoms of the victims, and does the incrimination and potential prosecution of deniers limit their freedom of expression? The research methods include analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, as well as normative and dogmatic approach. At the end, the author concludes about the impact of processing genocide denial on human rights and freedoms, including the freedom of expression guaranteed by Art. 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.