On July 23rd, 2021, Valentin Inzko, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), introduced a Law on the Amendment to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina punishing the denial of international crimes and glorification of war criminals. Coming shortly before the end of his mandate, this decision, in Inzko’s words, was taken after “all chances offered to the domestic authorities to distance themselves from war criminals were ultimately rejected.” Previous attempts to introduce such a law have been made by the Parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, since 2007 the enaction of a ban has been continuously vetoed by both Bosnian Serb MPs and the Bosnian-Croat nationalist party, the Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica; HDZ). For this reason, the new law was imposed by the High Representative through the so-called Bonn Powers. As soon as the law was introduced, it stirred tensions within the country. Milorad Dodik, the Serb representative of the tripartite Presidency of BiH, threatened the secession of the Republika Srpska (RS), the country’s majority Serb entity. RS President Zeljka Cvijanovic also moved quickly to make the new measure inapplicable in that entity. If the rationale behind the law is generalizable, this article aims to investigate the possibility of criminalizing denial not only in BiH, but also more widely in Europe. In recent years, punitive memory laws have increasingly been gaining attention, especially after the Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA which invites the EU Member States to adopt legislation punishing the negation of international crimes. First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between revisionism and negationism. While the former constitutes part of historians’ work and is usually based on new evidence, the latter is aimed to distort historically proven facts or deny that they have ever occurred. Thus, when negationism is targeted at historical events such as the Holocaust, whose condemnation is part of the core values of a society, the state intervenes to say: “we need to remember this historical fact in a certain way” (Fronza, 2006). Most importantly, negationism can be a form of hate speech, which is the case in BiH. Recalling the work of Robert Kahn on the Holocaust, it is possible to draw parallels. Focusing on the context, if brazen denial of the Holocaust in Germany and Austria constitutes hate speech, then denying the Srebrenica genocide in BiH has the same implication. This is for two reasons. Firstly, denial offends survivors and makes them feel unsafe. Secondly, it attempts to discredit the victims of genocide, and as such “isolates those connected to the victims from the rest of the human race” (Kahn, 2011). Thus, negationism alone can inflict serious harm, to both groups and individuals. A third dimension which needs to be considered is the glorification of war criminals and their crimes. According to Hariz Halilovich, a professor at the RMIT University of Melbourne, this “goes beyond genocide denial. It is not ignorance, neither denial itself. It is something different: triumphalism.” Today, triumphalism and denial have entered popular culture. “You see people singing that Srebrenica should be repeated three times and calling for new massacres,” continues Professor Halilovich, “No other post-conflict societies had to deal with that, neither Germany nor Rwanda. This is something very unique to the Bosnian context, where genocide denial is also embedded in the political discourse”. This dimension is obviously unbearable and deeply offending for both the survivors and the victims. Punitive memory laws aim to fulfill multiple functions: to defend a “state-established truth” and memory, to protect the dignity of survivors, to prevent hate speech, and to punish the glorification of violence. Whether or not these expectations are met by such laws is theoretically debated, with three weaknesses commonly pointed out. Firstly, a punitive solution clashes with freedom of expression. For some, “the denial of rights in the defense of officially sanctified ‘truth’” (Hayden, 2008) pose a concrete risk to personal liberty. Nevertheless, the recent amendment to the Bosnian Criminal Code seems to be balanced with the right to express different opinions, as it punishes only conduct which publicly denies judicial findings or is likely to encourage hatred and violence. Thus, the law would only be applied in cases of strict necessity. Secondly, the law might polarize the consent around the deniers (Fronza, 2012). Punishing them can activate a sort of victimization mechanism and consolidate their ranks while contributing to propagating their distortions.