An internationally-renowned scholar in the fields of international and transitional justice, Diane Orentlicher provides an unparalleled account of an international tribunal's impact in societies that have the greatest stake in its work. In Some Kind of Justice: The ICTY's Impact in Bosnia and Serbia, Orentlicher explores the evolving domestic impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which operated longer than any other international war crimes court. Drawing on hundreds of research interviews and a rich body of inter-disciplinary scholarship, Orentlicher provides a path-breaking account of how the Tribunal influenced domestic political developments, victims' experience of justice, acknowledgement of wartime atrocities, and domestic war crimes prosecutions, as well as the dynamic factors behind its evolving influence in each of these spheres. Highlighting the perspectives of Bosnians and Serbians, Some Kind of Justice offers important and practical lessons about how international criminal courts can improve the delivery of justice.

​​The Art of Transitional Justice examines the relationship between transitional justice and the practices of art associated with it. Art, which includes theater, literature, photography, and film, has been integral to the understanding of the issues faced in situations of transitional justice as well as other issues arising out of conflict and mass atrocity. The chapters in this volume take up this understanding and its demands of transitional justice in situations in several countries: Afghanistan, Serbia, Srebenica, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Cambodia, as well as the experiences of resulting diasporic communities. In doing so, it brings to bear the insights from scholars, civil society groups, and art practitioners, as well as interdisciplinary collaborations.

Scholars and practitioners alike agree that somehow the past needs to be addressed in order to enable individuals and collectives to rebuild trust and relationships. However, they also continue to struggle with critical questions. When is the right moment to address the legacies of the past after violent conflict? How can societies address the past without deepening the pain that arises from memories related to the violence and crimes committed in war? How can cultures of remembrance be established that would include and acknowledges the victims of all sides involved in violent conflict? How can various actors deal constructively with different interpretations of facts and history? Two decades after the wars, societies in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia – albeit to different degrees – are still facing the legacies of the wars of the 1990s on a daily basis. Reconciliation between and within these societies remains a formidable challenge, given that all three countries are still facing unresolved disputes either at a cross-border level or amongst parallel societies that persist at a local community level. This book engages scholars and practitioners from the regions of former Yugoslavia, as well as international experts, to reflect on the achievements and obstacles that characterise efforts to deal with the past. Drawing variously on empirical studies, theoretical discussions, and practical experience, their contributions offer invaluable insights into the complex relationship between transitional justice and conflict transformation.

Dr. Natasha Stamenkovikj offers a comprehensive account of the right to the truth as a right in international law and an element in delivering justice though European governance.

This book investigates competing modes of thought about gender security and aims to understand the policy implications of personal-political imaginations. The work draws upon extensive research conducted by the author in Serbia to develop a comprehensive picture of how feminist and women’s organising relates to the broader national and international contexts surrounding gender security. Through an innovative analytical framework of personal-political imaginations, the book explores the role that memories, perceptions and hopes about conflict and post-conflict have upon the logics of gender security. It investigates how contrasting and competing modes of thought about ‘gender security’ are made, paying attention to how the dynamics of gender politics in Serbia shape the security discourse and narratives of activists. The volume explores in detail how feminist and women’s organisations have responded to UNSCR 1325 by analysing two policy debates and campaigns that seek to ‘achieve’ its goals and gender security in Serbia: (1) feminist antimilitarism and (2) connecting domestic violence to the abuse of small arms and light weapons. Ultimately, the book argues that the configuration of gender security discourse is intimately linked to personal-political imaginations of conflict and post-conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of gender politics, conflict studies, critical security studies, European politics and IR in general.

The increase in the number of countries that have abolished the death penalty since the end of the Second World War shows a steady trend towards worldwide abolition of capital punishment. This book focuses on the political and legal issues raised by the death penalty in "countries in transition", understood as countries that have transitioned or are transitioning from conflict to peace, or from authoritarianism to democracy. In such countries, the politics that surround retaining or abolishing the death penalty are embedded in complex state-building processes. In this context, Madoka Futamura and Nadia Bernaz bring together the work of leading researchers of international law, human rights, transitional justice, and international politics in order to explore the social, political and legal factors that shape decisions on the death penalty, whether this leads to its abolition, reinstatement or perpetuation. Covering a diverse range of transitional processes in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, The Politics of the Death Penalty in Countries in Transition offers a broad evaluation of countries whose death penalty policies have rarely been studied. The book would be useful to human rights researchers and international lawyers, in demonstrating how transition and transformation, ‘provide the catalyst for several of interrelated developments of which one is the reduction and elimination of capital punishment’.

This book explores the ambiguous role played by civil society in the processes of state-building, democratization and post-conflict reconstruction in the Western Balkans challenging the assumption that civil society is always a force for good by analysing civil society actors and their effects in post-communist and post-conflict transition.

The dissolution of Yugoslavia and the tragic wars that followed continue to engage scholars throughout the region and the world. Ever since the fall of Slobodan Miloševic, the Scholars’ Initiative, an international consortium of over 250 scholars, has endeavored to study the period 1986-2000 as critically and objectively as possible. It believes that ongoing research, discussion, and publication of its work will help bridge the chasm that separates serious historical scholarship from those interpretations that nationalist politicians and media in the former Yugoslavia have impressed on their populations. This collection of articles reflects new research by ten of the Initiative’s scholars and offers analysis of a wide spectrum of issues. It examines the roots of the violent collapse of Yugoslavia, considers the impact of the dissolution on minority groups, tackles some of the controversies concerning Kosovo, evaluates the most recent evidence in the controversy concerning responsibility for the deadly artillery attacks against civilians during the long siege of Sarajevo, assesses the performance of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in its trial of Miloševic, and examines the very sensitive process in Serbia of facing its violent past in the aftermath of the tragedy. This book was previously published as a special issue of Nationalities Papers.

Exploring the impact of the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) on regime change in Serbia, this book examines the relationship between international criminal justice and democratisation. It analyses in detail the repercussions of the ICTY on domestic political dynamics and provides an explanatory account of Serbia's transition to democracy. Lack of cooperation and compliance with the ICTY was one of the biggest obstacles to Serbia's integration into Euro-Atlantic political structures following the overthrow of Milosevic. By scrutinising the attitudes of the Serbian authorities towards the ICTY and the prosecution of war crimes, Ostojic explores the complex processes set in motion by the international community's policies of conditionality and by the prosecution of the former Serbian leadership in The Hague. Drawing on a rich collection of empirical data, he demonstrates that the success of international judicial intervention is premised upon democratic consolidation and that transitional justice policies are only ever likely to take root when they do not undermine the stability and legitimacy of political institutions on the ground.