CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Metz, Kathryn Marie |
|---|---|
| Title | Transitional Justice in Prijedor: Ideals and Shortcomings of Criminal Prosecutions after the Bosnian War |
| Summary | The municipality of Prijedor experienced massive human rights violations during the Bosnian War. There have been tremendous international and domestic efforts to deliver justice for the crimes that were committed in Prijedor. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the local Bosnian courts have worked to hold individuals accountable and create a historical record of what happened during the conflict. In doing so they have convicted over 40 people for violations of international humanitarian law in Prijedor. However, despite the impressive prosecutorial record of these courts, the city of Prijedor is engulfed in a culture of silence that refuses to recognize the victims of war. As such the city has not experienced reconciliation and the formerly warring sides are still divided. Prijedor is home to more convicted war criminals than anywhere on earth and after twenty years of adjudication individuals are still being tried. The ICTY has made use of innovative legal doctrines in order to hold more people accountable. Both low and high level perpetrators have been tried and convicted. The ICTY built capacity in Bosnia in order for war crimes cases to be tried locally. From a conviction standpoint, the prosecution of Prijedor war criminals has been hugely successful. Most transitional justice advocates assert that reconciliation occurs as a result of successful criminal prosecutions. However, despite the overwhelming number of convicted war criminals from Prijedor, reconciliation has not happened. One reason for the failure of courts to contribute towards reconciliation is that victims have experienced much frustration with both the Tribunal and the local courts. One source of frustration arose from the use of plea bargains because a guilty plea often resulted in a low sentence for the defendant. Furthermore, victims were frustrated with the process of testifying. Although The Hague provided the necessary protective measures for witnesses, those who came to testify were frustrated because they were not able to fully tell their story. Protective measures were lacking in the local court, which prevented victim-witnesses from testifying at all. A further problem explained in this thesis is the ineffective outreach programs of both the ICTY and the local courts. Outreach is necessary to inform all the ethnic groups about what the courts have proven. However, the ICTY was late to create its Outreach Program, allowing politicians and the media to distort the facts. The local courts had an easier task because they are closer to the affected communities, but their outreach efforts remain underfunded and neglected. With the lack of public knowledge of court decisions regarding war criminals in Prijedor, the political elites have manipulated the truth. In addition to the shortcomings of the Tribunal and local courts, the current political situation in Prijedor is also a huge obstacle to the process of reconciliation. Today in Prijedor, the Bosnian Serb leadership prohibits non-Serbs from memorializing their victims of war. The Bosnian Serb mayor condemns commemoration marches by non-Serbs. The victims of war are invisible in the city, which refuses to understand and accept the past. Despite all the criminal proceedings against Prijedor war criminals, the municipality remains divided. |
| Supervisor | Petrovic, Vladimir |
| Department | Legal Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/metz_kathryn.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University