The Mothers of Srebrenica are to appeal a ruling Tuesday by The Hague District Court confirming the United Nations enjoy absolute immunity, a Dutch law firm said, DPA reported.
Amsterdam-based law firm Van Diepen Van der Kroef, which represents some 6,000 women who lost relatives in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, said it would appeal after the court earlier denied the group's request to refer the question of the UN's immunity to the European Court of Justice.
The plaintiffs have accused the UN and the Netherlands of failing to take effective action to prevent the Srebrenica massacre, thus violating a UN convention on genocide.
The motion is part of a larger suit brought against the Dutch government and the United Nations by lawyers Axel Hagedorn and Marco Gerritsen on behalf of the Mothers of Srebrenica. The Mothers are seeking compensation from the Dutch state and the United Nations.
They claim the UN and the Netherlands did not prevent the killing by Bosnian Serb forces of some 8,000 Muslims in one week in July 1995 in the Muslim enclave, which at the time had been declared a United Nations safe area.
The Dutch were deployed in Srebrenica with some 400 peacekeepers during the events.
In July 2008, the Hague-based court ruled that the United Nations enjoyed immunity, a decision now confirmed by the district court.
Lawyer Axel Hagedorn said earlier this month that his clients wanted the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg to rule on the question of whether the UN enjoys absolute immunity.
Following Tuesday's court ruling, his law firm said it would now request the Dutch Supreme Court to refer the question to the European Court of Justice.