The West continues to view Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić as a key partner in the region despite his long history of denying that acts of genocide were committed throughout the Balkans, and that his ongoing actions threaten regional stability. It is imperative that western governments reconsider their relationship with Serbia’s authoritarian leader.

A recent resolution from the United Nations has exposed long-running tensions concerning genocide and the Bosnian War. While this document laid the blame with individual Serbs and Bosnian Serbs, Belgrade continues to view such language as an attack on the whole Serbian nation.

The denial of the Srebrenica genocide is one of the biggest issues facing Bosnia and Herzegovina today. In this sense, the complete annihilation of a nation or an ethnic group requires the destruction of testimonies and memory as well. It is clear that without justice and paying tribute to the victims, peace cannot be achieved. And without peace, Bosnia and Herzegovina will eventually collapse.

In July 1995 in and around the town of Srebrenica the population of Bosnian Muslims was massacred by the military forces of the Bosnian Serbs under the command of General Ratko Mladić. Opinions on how to describe these mass killings differ between those who believe it was “only” a war crime and those who, in line with the verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, recognise it as a genocide. Evidently, Srebrenica’s history did not end with the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement. In the post-war period it has been faced with a new challenge: the denial.

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to massive killings and casualties among civilian population. War crimes committed during the conflict remind us of the menace of genocide, especially while the invaders put the “denazification” motto on their banners. When dealing with such a divisive topic, it is important to remember the legacy left by the man who first coined the term “genocide”.

He was the first to call genocide by its proper name. He was the one who dedicated his life to one mission and enhanced international law via his “own” convention. Like many selfless humanists, this man accomplished his goal at the expense of his private life, welfare and premature death. He was unsuccessfully nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize ten times. He was not heard, when needed. He was accepted, only when the world had no choice. He was forgotten, once the world had no more use of him. That was the fate of Raphael Lemkin.

Review of Jasmila Žbanić’s film "Quo Vadis, Aida?", one of the nominees in the upcoming Oscars in the Best International Feature Film category.

On 2 June 2016, Germany's Bundestag passed a resolution qualifying the Ottoman era Armenian killings as genocide. A few days before, the Yerevan population welcomed a monument to Garegin Nzhdeh, a Nazi collaborator.