War Crimes Tribunal

Although, there is a considerable literature which analyzes the UN Mission in Kosovo from different perspectives, limited attention has been given to the mission " s contribution in confronting with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo committed by the Milosevic regime against Kosovo Albanians during the 1998-1999. This article intends to provide a comprehensive analysis of international justice mechanisms – UNMIK and the ICTY – in dealing with the past injustices in Kosovo by identifying their flaws and shortcomings, as well as exploring factors that impacted their performance and effectiveness. By using the existing literature, international organizations " reports, governmental documents, and media articles, the article argues that international community failed to deal with transitional justice issues in Kosovo – fighting impunity and delivering justice to victims as well as strengthening the rule of law and achieving reconciliation between the communities. In its endeavors to documenting the past crimes, international mechanisms relied mainly on retributive justice whilst ignoring restorative and reparation measures under justifications to preserving peace and stability in Kosovo. Regretfully, seventeen years after the war, justice in Kosovo remains an " unfinished business, " with a potential of negative implications to peace and reconciliation amongst the ethnic groups.

The appropriate form of the legal address and redress to the victims of contemporary conflicts has received increasing attention in transitional justice literatures and debates. However, few scholarly analyses engage with civilians and military personnel as differential categories of unlawfully victimised persons. In seeking to address this gap, this article explores the construction of legal representation of civilian and military victims by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It first examines the prevalence, patterns and practices of their unlawful victimisation during the Yugoslavian conflicts, and then considers how civilians and military personnel are made visible at the ICTY as differential collectivities of victims by analysing patterns in its criminal prosecutions. This analysis shows that the ICTY constructs a legal record of acts of civilian victimisation, but an ambiguous account of its military victims.

Crimes Against Humans and Crimes against Humanity. Implications for Modern Criminology. 18th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, European Society of Criminology and University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (20180829-20180901). ”Crimes Against Humans and Crimes Against Humanity: Analysis of Documents Produced During Trials at Tribunals After the War in North-West Bosnia and Herzegovina”, with Zlatan Delić.

The aim of the study is to analyse documents produced during trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Section for War Crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina concerning the 1992 war in north-west Bosnia and Herzegovina. The documents construct and reconstruct the categories of victim and perpetrator at a symbolic level. Punishing the offenders for war crimes is a means by which local and international courts attempt to eliminate the ideology on which the atrocities were based. The study interprets the documents as rhetorical warnings to future belligerents. Warfare that targets civilians and lack of respect for human rights are construed as unacceptable. In revealing the scope of war crimes committed during the period, the documents represent an attempt to influence the local and international community. They implicitly define the categories of victim and perpetrator, highlighting the individual and visible punishment to which the latter are subject while implying that their ideology has thereby been eliminated. The documents emphasize the role of individual responsibility in future wars. The presumption is that peer pressure is no excuse for war crimes and that civilians are never to be targeted.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to present the situation regarding the detection and prosecution of war crimes in the Western Balkans, as well as to point out the main specifics or, better said, problems encountered by judicial authorities while dealing with these crimes. Design/Methods/Approach: The article is based on the current work of the judiciary and the prosecutor of the republics of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Croatia. We chose these three countries as the spatial framework for our research because during the civil wars in the Western Balkans most war crimes were committed on their territories. Through content analysis of existing domestic literature and our own survey research, the findings were comparatively analysed. In order to obtain further empirical and relevant information regarding the investigation and prosecution of war criminals in the Western Balkans, the methods of direct observation and analysis of the content of the judicial proceedings were applied. Findings: The work on detecting and prosecuting war crimes in attempting to provide evidence for use in criminal war crimes proceedings in the Western Balkans is a daunting task. This is because these crimes are both factually and legally of the most complicated sort, not the least in terms of their severity. Therefore, the research started by presenting the structure of the responsible governmental bodies conducting proceedings against war crime perpetrators in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia. Special attention was paid to legal and practical problems in this field. The authors point to the many challenges making the detection and prosecution of these crimes both difficult and complicated. Thus, the aim of this article is to examine the aforementioned problems and, on the basis of analysis, contribute to building more effective legal and criminalistics methods for detecting and prosecuting war crime offenders in the Western Balkans. Research Limitations/Implications: The research results for the analysis of the investigative procedure and prosecution of war criminals in the Republic of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia focus specifically on material collected regarding crimes committed in the period 1991 to 1999 only.

Practical Implications:
The research results can be used to develop a strategy for detecting and prosecuting war crimesby suggesting improved methods for gathering quality personal and material evidence in the Western Balkans. In addition, the paper provides information for practitioners and theorists outside of the Western Balkanscurrently dealing with issues related to such crimes. By familiarising themselves with the research findings herein, they will be able to expand their knowledge and use it as a basis for new research in this field. Lawmakers can also benefit from the results and make necessary amendments to the legislation and regulations of criminal procedures in the Republic of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia to enhance the efforts in the area of countering war crimes. Further, by identifying the problems of conducting and processing investigations in the region, and by stressing the restricted prosecutorial resources, including the limited number of specialised prosecutors of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, the shortage of prosecutors and support staff, as well as the lack of specialisation and expertise among defence counsel the findings of this research can contribute to the curriculum for the education of future lawyers (prosecutors, investigators, judges etc.) in this field.

Originality/Value:
The originality of this paper is reflected in the empirical study of procedures related to investigating and prosecuting war criminals inthe Western Balkans. This approach explores the challenges associated with a variety of issues. As such, it may also provide valuable information to be used in creating new methodologies for detecting and gathering evidence in legal and criminalistics practice. Lastly, it can serve as a basis for other research in the field.

Keywords: war crimes, investigation, prosecution, proving, legal and practical problems