Abstract
After more than a dozen years of activity, some 161 indictments, 64 arrests, and 47 surrenders, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has accomplished a good deal in terms of its primary task of prosecution. Nonetheless, there is still much debate over the state of transitional justice in the Balkans and what has been accomplished. We cannot forget that the ICTY was created with broad political and social purposes in mind, specifically to contribute to the restoration and maintenance of peace. Using a comparative framework, we develop benchmarks of transitional justice outcomes to examine these vague but important and ambitious goals. Although conventional wisdom says that the ICTY is used instrumentally by Balkan leaders who are fundamentally opposed to the court’s existence, we demonstrate that there is also evidence of broader political and social change throughout the region. Thus, we contend that Balkan countries have indeed moved beyond mere prosecution.
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Notes
The ICTY expects to close its doors in 2014. For more on its target dates and the challenges of completion, see http://www.icty.org/sid/10016.
On the concept of judicial romanticism, see Forsythe (2006), chapter 4.
Here, we adopt a similar approach and outlook as that in McMahon and Forsythe (2008).
Subotić’s work also incorporates truth commissions and goes beyond considering only trials and arrests (2009).
For Kosovo, it was from 2008 to 2010.
For discussion of the World Governance Indicators, see http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/pdf/rl.pdf.
To be clear, the investigations that were thwarted were of Serbs, not Kosovars.
While some of the opinions listed herein come from interviews conducted with the authors, all of the surveys were conducted by other scholars
Based on face-to-face interviews with 2,000 adults between December 2006 and January 2007. Margin of error estimated at ±2 percentage points. It should be noted that another poll conducted by Intermedia in 2006 indicated that the majority feels “foreign powers are responsible for most of the country’s problems.”
Based upon interviews with 1,000 or more individuals in each respective state.
Since the initial writing of this manuscript, the Research and Documentation Center in Bosnia-Herzegovina has left RECOM. We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this fact.
Author interviews in Sarajevo and Brcko, Bosnia and Pristina, Kosovo May 2011. See also the website on the Recom initiative at: http://www.zarekom.org,
See the extensive list on the RECOM initiative at: http://www.zarekom.org.
The authors employed a cross-sectional cluster sample survey. The survey was administered to 1,399 Kosovar Albanians living in 593 randomly selected households.
Results based on face-to-face interviews conducted in February 2007 with randomly selected samples of about 1,000 residents aged 15 and older in Kosovo, Serbia, and Albania. Margin of error estimated at ±4 %.
As in 2003, a three-stage stratified sample was utilized; face-to-face interviews were conducted with 1,245 individuals over age 18 in August 2004.
This survey was conducted in partnership with the Belgrade Centre on Human Rights. A three-stage, stratified, representative sampling process was utilized; 1,400 face-to-face interviews were conducted with individuals over the age of 16. The sample was expanded for groups of particular interests, including the young (16–23), Albanians, and Bosniaks.
This was also confirmed in a discussion with Andrzej Pyrka, Programme Director of the Gallup Organization in Brussels, Belgium, May 26, 2011.
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Acknowledgments
A much earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 2009 Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting. The authors wish to thank David Forsythe, Faten Ghosn, Jill Irvine, Nikolay Marinov, Jelena Subotic, and the editor and three anonymous reviewers at HRR for helpful comments on various drafts of this manuscript.
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McMahon, P.C., Miller, J.L. From Adjudication to Aftermath: Assessing the ICTY’s Goals beyond Prosecution. Hum Rights Rev 13, 421–442 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-012-0239-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-012-0239-x