7 Immunity, 7.10 Mothers of Srebrenica v The Netherlands and the UN, LJN: BW1999, Dutch Supreme Court, 13 April 2012 and Stichting Mothers of Srebrenica and Others against The Netherlands, App. No. 65542/12, European Court of Human Rights, 11 June 2013

Subject(s):

Human rights remedies — Immunity from jurisdiction — Membership of international organizations — International organizations, practice and procedure — Responsibility of international organizations

Increasingly, domestic and regional courts have engaged in reinterpreting the international law on immunities. The two present decisions add to a broader jurisprudential development through which courts have started to question the scope of immunity enjoyed by international organizations—or rather the unconditionality thereof—as a response to human rights-based critique. Whether or not international organizations enjoy immunity before a domestic court should, according to this developing approach, depend on a balancing act between, on the one hand, the functional interests of the international organization and, on the other hand, the individuals’ right of access to court. The decisions discussed in this section illustrate this doctrinal development as well as the limits of this developing line of jurisprudence by confirming that the immunity of the UN, as a sui generis international organization, shall not be subjected to the aforementioned balancing act.