Today, on the 26th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has reiterated the UK’s ongoing commitment to supporting reconciliation across the Western Balkans.

The genocide claimed the lives of over 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys and led to the displacement of over 20,000 women and children who were forcibly expelled from their homes.

The Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab said:

Today, we pause to remember the victims and honour the survivors of the Srebrenica genocide. The United Kingdom continues to play a vital role in ending impunity for these horrific crimes as we have shown by agreeing to provide the prison cell so Radovan Karadzic can serve his life sentence for the genocide.

Further information:

• The Foreign Secretary has urged political leaders in the region to reject hate speech, to condemn any glorification of the perpetrators of genocide and war crimes, and to respect the verdicts of international and domestic courts.
• Two international courts, the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former-Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice, after exhaustive legal processes, have ruled that Srebrenica was a genocide.
• In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to date, a total of 57 individuals have been tried at the BiH State Court for crimes committed in and around Srebrenica in July 1995. A further 20 individuals have been tried at the ICTY for crimes related to Srebrenica over the course of 12 cases. (ICMP, 2020).
• Over the past 26 years, the UK has provided millions of pounds to support projects relating to the Srebrenica genocide, including support for the victims’ families and survivors.

• We have an ongoing project with the Srebrenica Memorial Centre to develop its operational capacities and establish a globally relevant centre for genocide research, prevention, and reconciliation.

• The UK has maintained a long standing focus on reconciliation work and projects in the Western Balkans, including:
  • Being one of the key donors to the construction and setting up of the Court of BiH;
  • Providing political, financial and logistical support to the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals; and
  • Funding the work of the International Commission for Missing Persons.

• In 2018 at the Berlin Process Western Balkans Summit in London, the UK negotiated the signing of three Joint Declarations focusing on War Crimes, Missing Persons, and Good Neighbourly Relations. All the Berlin Process Leaders signed. These were reconfirmed on 5 July 2021 at the latest Berlin Process Summit.

• The UK supports Bosnia and Herzegovina’s aspirations for Euro-Atlantic integration. Reconciliation and good neighbourly relations remain central to achieving this aim and to maintaining stability in the region.

• Rishi Sunak welcomes milestone progress on global tax reform at G20 in Venice

• G20 Finance Ministers fully endorse global tax agreement and call for swift action to finalise outstanding detail by October

• G20 also pledged to promote implementation of climate-related financial disclosures

The foundations for the historic agreement on global tax reform were laid at the G7 in London, and now 132 countries and jurisdictions representing 95% of world GDP have signed up to the deal within the OECD.

Following two days of G20 meetings in Venice, including an informal breakfast meeting of the G7 chaired by Mr Sunak, Finance Ministers pledged their full support for the deal and called for outstanding issues to be swiftly addressed at OECD level along with a detailed implementation plan by October. The group also called on countries who have yet to sign up to do so.

The seismic global tax deal will change the international rules so that large multinationals pay their fair share of tax in the countries they do business and introduce a global minimum rate that ensures multinationals pay tax of at least 15% on profit in each country they operate.

Speaking in Venice, the Chancellor said:

I’m delighted that the full weight of the G20 is behind this historic tax deal – which will make sure our global tax system is fit for purpose in a digital age and crucially is fair.

We must continue to build on this momentum over the coming months and work together as an international community to create a fairer tax system, which cracks down on tax avoidance and levels up our high street.

The G20 also reiterated the need for urgent action to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.

The group encouraged international financial institutions to step up their efforts to align their activities with the Paris Agreement and called on the private sector and markets to play their part to support the transition to net zero.

Just over seven months after the UK led by example by committing to make climate related disclosures mandatory at home, the G20 committed to promoting implementation of consistent and comparable climate-related financial disclosure and welcomed the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation’s work to develop global baseline sustainability reporting standards.

The G20 also committed to continue supporting the poorest and most vulnerable countries as they address the health and economic challenges associated with COVID. G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors supported a general allocation of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) totalling USD $650 billion and urged swift implementation by the end of August.

The group also called on the IMF to quickly present options for countries to voluntarily channel a share of their allocated SDRs to help vulnerable countries finance more resilient, inclusive and sustainable economic recoveries.

Further information

• Read the full G20 communique via the Italian Presidency here

• Read more about the G7 agreements here

• Further information on the continuing international tax reform negotiations can be found here

• The G20 comprises of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union

• Italy holds the G20 Presidency this year

• Photographs of the meetings will be available from HM Treasury’s Flickr page