Narratives of Justice for the Balkans : Establishing Responsibility for Genocide in the Bosnian War

The article examines several different processes of transitional justice and dispute resolution whose purpose is to establish truth and responsibility for genocide committed during the Bosnian war and further the process of reconciliation. Part I sets out the basic facts and fundamental questions which need to be resolved. Part II analyzes the contribution of the proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to establishing whether genocide in fact occurred during the Bosnian conflict and the individual criminal responsibility for that genocide, while also dealing with the issue of whether the Tribunal is succeeding in its mission to credibly transmit its findings to the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. Part III analyzes the proceedings in the Srebrenica cases before the now-defunct Human Rights Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the effectiveness of the remedies awarded by the Chamber. Part IV deals with the pending proceedings before the International Court of Justice on the state responsibility of Serbia and Montenegro for genocide in the Bosnian war. Part V analyzes the success and the lack thereof of negotiation and mediation processes of dispute resolution in establishing responsibility for genocide. The paper concludes with a general overview of the difficulties faced by all of these processes in order to achieve at least some measure of justice