•HRES 199 IH 
Whereas Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and 
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (done at Paris on 
December 9, 1948, and entered into force with respect to 
the United States on February 23, 1989) defines geno-
cide as ‘‘any of the following acts committed with intent 
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial 
or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the 
group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to 
members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the 
group conditions of life calculated to bring about its 
physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing 
measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) 
forcibly transferring children of the group to another 
group’’; 
Whereas on May 25, 1993, the United Nations Security 
Council adopted Resolution 827 establishing the world’s 
first international war crimes tribunal, the International 
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 
based in The Hague, the Netherlands, and charging the 
ICTY with responsibility for investigating and pros-
ecuting individuals suspected of committing war crimes, 
genocide, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of 
the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the territory of the 
former Yugoslavia since 1991; 
Whereas numerous members of the Bosnian Serb forces at 
various levels of responsibility have been indicted for 
grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, viola-
tions of the laws or customs of war, crimes against hu-
manity, genocide, and complicity in genocide associated 
with the massacre at Srebrenica, some of whom have 
been tried and sentenced while others, including Radovan 
Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, remain at large; and
•HRES 199 IH 
Whereas the international community, including the United 
States, has continued to provide personnel and resources, 
including through direct military intervention, to prevent 
further aggression and ethnic cleansing, to negotiate the 
General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina (initialled in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, 
1995, and signed in Paris on December 14, 1995), and 
to help ensure its fullest implementation, including co-
operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for 
the former Yugoslavia: Now therefore be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) the thousands of innocent people executed 
at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 
1995, along with all individuals who were victimized 
during the conflict and genocide in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, should be solemnly 
remembered and honored; 
(2) the policies of aggression and ethnic cleans-
ing as implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 meet the terms de-
fining the crime of genocide in Article 2 of the Con-
vention on the Prevention and Punishment of the 
Crime of Genocide; 
(3) foreign nationals, including United States 
citizens, who have risked and in some cases lost 
their lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina while working
•HRES 199 IH 
toward peace should be solemnly remembered and 
honored; 
(4) the United Nations and its member states 
should accept their share of responsibility for allow-
ing the Srebrenica massacre and genocide to occur 
in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 by 
failing to take sufficient, decisive, and timely action, 
and the United Nations and its member states 
should constantly seek to ensure that this failure is 
not repeated in future crises and conflicts; 
(5) it is in the national interest of the United 
States that those individuals who are responsible for 
war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and 
grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, 
committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, should be 
held accountable for their actions; 
(6) all persons indicted by the International 
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 
should be apprehended and transferred to The 
Hague without further delay, and all countries 
should meet their obligations to cooperate fully with 
the ICTY at all times; and 
(7) the United States should continue to sup-
port the independence and territorial integrity of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, peace and stability in