Dealing with the Past in the Balkans
Hijacked Justice
by Jelena Subotic
September 2009
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What is the appropriate political response to mass
atrocity? In HIJACKED JUSTICE, Jelena Subotic traces the design,
implementation, and political outcomes of institutions established to
deal with the legacies of violence in the aftermath of the Yugoslav
wars. She finds that international efforts to establish accountability
for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia have been used to pursue very
different local political goals. Responding to international pressures,
Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia have implemented various mechanisms of
"transitional justice" -- the systematic addressing of past crimes after
conflicts end.
Transitional justice in the three countries, however,
was guided by ulterior political motives: to get rid of domestic
political opponents, to obtain international financial aid, or to gain
admission to the European Union. Subotic argues that when transitional
justice becomes "hijacked" for such local political strategies, it
fosters domestic backlash, deepens political instability, and even
creates alternative, politicized versions of history.
That war crimes trials (such as those in The Hague)
and truth commissions (as in South Africa) are necessary and desirable
has become a staple belief among those concerned with reconstructing
societies after conflict. States are now expected to deal with their
violent legacies in an institutional setting rather than through blanket
amnesty or victor's justice. This new expectation, however, has produced
paradoxical results. In order to avoid the pitfalls of hijacked justice,
Subotic argues, the international community should focus on broader and
deeper social transformation of postconflict societies, instead on
emphasizing only arrests of war crimes suspects.
Jelena Subotic is Assistant Professor of Political
Science at Georgia State University. She was formerly a human rights
coordinator for Open Society Institute and a contributor at Radio B-92
in Belgrade. |
