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The Former Yugoslavia

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For most of the 1990s, the states that broke away from the former Yugoslavia one by one were battlegrounds for the worst violence in Europe since the Second World War. The conflicts left the region deeply divided and economically weak. While Croatia now stands at the doorstep of the European Union, Kosovo, the latest self-proclaimed independent country to emerge in the region, suffers from the worst economy in Europe. None of the states of the former Yugoslavia has comprehensively addressed past conflicts and human rights abuses. 

Background

Slovenia's declaration of independence from the Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991 marked the start of the dismantling of the former Yugoslavia. Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) followed suit. The fighting between Slovenia and the Yugoslav People's Army lasted only 10 days, but the brutal wars fought in Croatia and BiH (begun in 1991 and 1992 respectively) dragged on until 1995. Fighting in Kosovo lasted from 1998 to 1999.

The conflicts included widespread attacks against civilians, population expulsions, systematic rape and the use of concentration camps. Most of the massacres occurred in BiH, Croatia and Kosovo. About 140,000 people were killed in the region during the conflicts, and almost 4 million others were displaced.

Each country carved out of the former Yugoslavia presents its own challenges to accountability for human rights abuses, but the conflicts of the past decade also require regional responses.

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Transitional Justice Initiatives

Criminal prosecutions: War crimes prosecution is the mostdeveloped transitional justice mechanism in the region. Extensive prosecutions have taken place in BiH at the cantonal and district levels, as well as before the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, inaugurated in 2005. Croatia established specialized chambers to deal with war crimes cases in 2003; Serbia set up the War Crimes Chamber in the District Court of Belgrade the same year; and international judges and prosecutors were deployed in Kosovo in 2000.

The quality of the prosecutions in these countries is uneven. Witnesses in the Serbian court have felt intimidated into silence when faced with testifying against police officers suspected of war crimes. In the court in BiH, closed sessions were too frequent in some early trials, and some confusion arose over the use of plea bargains.

At the regional level, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), established in 1993 by the United Nations Security Council, has finished proceedings against 115 people, and proceedings continue against 46 others. Slobodan Milosevic was the highest-ranking person to appear before the tribunal; the former president of Serbia died in 2006 as his four-year trial neared its end. In 2008 former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested and sent to face the ICTY. As part of the tribunal's "completion strategy" of finishing its work by 2010, the ICTY in 2008 transferred 13 cases to national courts in BiH, Croatia and Serbia.

Truth-seeking initiatives: None of the governments has made a comprehensive effort to investigate the causes of the war crimes committed against all ethnicities. Nor have any of the governments attempted to document all the events. National efforts at truth-seeking in the region have failed.

Serbian President Vojislav Kostunica established the Yugoslav Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2001. However, the group lacked ethnic diversity and did not consult adequately with victims and NGOs. The commission ended its work without delivering a final report or making recommendations.

In BiH, the government's Commission for Establishing Truth on the Fates of Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Jews, and Others in Sarajevo in the Period between 1992 and 1995 failed to get off the ground. Commissions for missing persons in BiH, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo are working to find and identify the remains of missing persons, but their work is uneven and affected by insufficient regional cooperation.

In 2004 the three main organizations that address legacies of the past in the former Yugoslavia formed a coalition that is in the process of creating a record of all victims of the Yugoslav wars. Those organizations are the Humanitarian Law Center (Serbia), the Research and Documentation Center (BiH) and Documenta (Croatia). Their Human Losses Project should serve to prevent historical revisionism and help victims and civil society at large to resist political manipulation of the past. The coalition also aims to build a regional civil society platform to motivate the public and the national governments to create a Regional Commission on Establishing the Facts in the Former Yugoslavia.

Institutional reforms: Various reforms took place throughout the region. The most comprehensive occurred in BiH's judicial sector. Between 2002 and 2004, all judges and prosecutors had to reapply for their positions, thus undergoing a vetting procedure that also reduced the size of the judiciary and ensured adequate ethnic representation. The High Judicial and Prosecutorial Councils reviewed 1,000 applications and rejected about 200 of them. In Serbia, the Law on Accountability for Violations of Human Rights, adopted in 2003, has not yet been implemented.

Reparations: Reparations to victims of the conflicts have taken several forms, including financial compensation, restitution of rights and the building of memorials. BiH successfully carried out property restitution, resolving about 95 percent of the 200,000 claims that local authorities received. Throughout the former Yugoslavia, however, authorities have paid reparations primarily to members of the dominant ethnic group in the area and rarely to other victims. Similarly, memorials pay tribute only to victims of the majority group. Reparation laws also are significantly more favorable to former combatants than to civilian victims.

At the regional level, BiH filed a claim against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia before the International Court of Justice for violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention and asked for financial compensation. The court rejected that part of the claim.

(Updated February 2009)

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The Former Yugoslavia Resources
Archive

The Former Yugoslavia Country Page (March 2008)


ICTJ News Coverage

26 Apr 10: Some still in denial over massacre in Srebrenica

11 Apr 10: Bosnian Serbs Block Srebrenica Massacre Resolution

3 Dec 09: SC - Debate on International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

26 Oct 09: Yugoslav war crimes victims need "truth commission"

21 Apr 09: Calls for Bigger EU Role in Balkan Stability Efforts

21 Apr 09: Peace, Justice - or Both

24 Dec 08: A Year of Progress over War Crimes

15 Oct 08: ICTJ warns Bosnian War Crimes Chamber's early success at risk

29 Aug 08: In Yugoslav tribunal, welling up of conscience

5 Aug 08: First Regional Truth Commission Runs Into Doubts

26 Jul 08: Panel discussion on the indictment of Radovan Karadzic

29 Apr 08: Politicians Stymie Belgrade War Crimes Trials

1 Jan 08: Justice, reconciliation and EU integration in the Western Balkans: the legacy of the ICTY


ICTJ Features and Press Releases

14 Oct 08: Bosnian War Crimes Chamber's early success at risk

8 Sep 08: Transitional justice review of Serbia for UN HRC

25 Aug 08: Timeline: Radovan Karadžić Case

25 Aug 08: Q&A: Radovan Karadžić and the ICTY

22 Jul 08: Serbia: Steps after Karadzic arrest

12 Jun 08: Serbia: Arrest of Bosnian Serb Commander

20 May 08: Serbia's Past, Serbia's Future

11 Feb 08: ICTJ Report Assesses War Crimes Mechanisms in Serbia

9 Feb 07: ICTJ Report Addresses Legacy of Conflict in Croatia

11 Jul 05: Ten Years After Srebrenica

3 Nov 04: At the Crossroads: Transitional Justice Developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro


ICTJ Publications

July 10: That Someone Guilty Be Punished

Sept 09: Bosnia and Herzegovina: Submission to the Universal Periodic Review Of the UN Human Rights Council Seventh Session: February 2010

Mar 09: Factsheet: Transitional Justice in the Former Yugoslavia

Mar 09: Kosovo: Conflicts over Property Rights Threaten Reconciliation English | Serbian | Albanian

Oct 08: The War Crimes Chamber in Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Hybrid to Domestic Court
English | Bosnian

17 Jul 08: Serbia: Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council, Third Session, December 1-12, 2008

Feb 08: Against the Current-War Crimes Prosecutions in Serbia English | Serbian

Aug 07: Transitional Justice and the Role of the Media in the Balkans, Discussion Paper, August 2007 English | Serbian

Feb 07: Croatia: Selected Developments in Transitional Justice English | Hrvatska

Apr 06: Lessons from the Deployment of International Judges and Prosecutors in Kosovo Albanian | English | Français | Khmer

Oct 04: Bosnia and Herzegovina: Selected Developments in Transitional Justice

Oct 04: Serbia and Montenegro: Selected Developments in Transitional Justice

Jul 02: A Casualty of Politics: Overview of Acts and Projects of Reparation, On the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia

Apr 02: Summary Report regarding Local, Regional and International Documentation of War Crimes and Human Rights Violations in the former Yugoslavia

 


Reference Materials

Bard College Human Rights Project: Milosevic Trial Public Archive

Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina: War Crimes Chamber

Institute for War and Peace Reporting: Tribunal Update

International Commission on Missing Persons International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: Latest Developments

Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor (Serbia)

OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities

General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dayton Accords)

Humanitarian Law Center: Transitional Justice in Post-Yugoslav Countries - Report for 2006

Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies, Mayer-Rieckh, Alexander and Pablo de Greiff, eds. New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007.



Related Pages on this Site

Memory

Prosecutions

Reparations

Truth-seeking

Vetting


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