Expanding the scope of post-conflict justice: Individual, state and societal responsibility for mass atrocity
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343310394696 |
| Published date | 01 March 2011 |
| Date | 01 March 2011 |
| Author | Jelena Subotic |
Expanding the scope of post-conflict
justice: Individual, state and societal
responsibility for mass atrocity
Jelena Subotic
Department of Political Science, Georgia State University
Abstract
Over the past two decades, a new international regime of individual criminal accountability has emerged as a domi-
nant regulatory mechanism to address gross human rights violations. At the same time, states are still pursuing claims
against each other for human rights abuses in international courts. These two concepts of responsibility – individual
and state – are not only fundamentally at odds with one another; they also exclude the third, critical aspect of political
accountability – societal responsibility for past violence. This triple accountability – of individual perpetrators who
committed the crimes, of the state that hired them to implement the practices, and of society that supported or tacitly
approved repressive state policies – is a complex political condition that the current transitional justice framework is
ill equipped to deal with. Individualization of accountability serves the retributive purpose of justice, but it is woe-
fully inadequate to address the collective political ideologies that made such heinous crimes possible in the first place.
Domestic elites can be enthusiastic supporters of individual human rights trials – not because they want to bring
about justice, but because they want to shield the state and society from complicity in past crimes. To address this
paradox, this article presents a new framework of post-conflict accountability that includes individual, state, and soci-
etal responsibility for human rights violations. The framework is then applied to the case of Serbianresponsibility for
war crimes committed in Bosnia.
Keywords
accountability, Bosnia, Serbia, transitional justice
When Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader
accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war
crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was arrested in Belgrade in
July 2008, international human rights groups were jubi-
lant. Karadzic’s arrest is a ‘blow against impunity’ every-
where, declared Human Rights Watch. The arrest ‘is a
step toward redress for Bosnian victims and families who
have suffered horribly’ (Human Rights Watch, 2008).
And that it certainly was. After 13 years in hiding, the
man behind the worst atrocities in Europe since World
War II was finally behind bars.
Karadzic’s arrest served many other political purposes
as well. Since the European Union requires Serbia to
fully cooperate with the ICTY before it considers it a
potential member candidate, the Serbian government
placed the arrest in the context of its European ambitions.
Karadzic’s arrest was a sign that the Serbian government
had a ‘very ambitious European agenda’, Serbia’s
foreign minister announced (B92, 22 July 2008). The
European Union officials also claimed credit, arguing
that the arrest was the result of sustained European pres-
sures on Serbia, its clever use of European ‘soft power’
(Smyth, 2008).
But this event did little to change the perception of
the past in Serbia. Thirteen years after the war in Bosnia,
Corresponding author:
jsubotic@gsu.edu
Journal of Peace Research
48(2) 157–169
ªThe Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343310394696
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