Dutch forces in Potočari, Srebrenica, July 12, 1995 |
The Court said the Netherland state was responsible by 10 percent, as this was the level of the opportunity that Dutch soldiers might have prevented the killings.
"If the Dutch soldiers allowed these men to stay there, there was only 10 percent chance they would not fall into the hands of the Serbian forces, and therefore the Dutch state should be responsible only for that part of the damage," the Court decided.
While an Appeals court had previously assigned the responsibility at 30 percent, but the decision of the Supreme Court has drastically reduced that figure.
Bosnian Serb forces killed nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men in the Srebrenica town in 1995.
The Dutch were guarding a UN security area when the massacre took place.
It is a rare case for a country to be held accountable for the failures in UN peacekeeping operations.
In 2002, a report on the role of the Netherlands in Srebrenica caused the entire Dutch government to resign.