“Adding fuel to the fire”: Unconditional early release of perpetrators convicted by the ICTY, views from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Despite being found guilty of atrocity crimes, 54 of the 90 perpetrators sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) were granted unconditional early release (UER) between 1998 and 2018. As such, they were free to return, often to be greeted as heroes by welcoming crowds. Some high-profile figures rejected the ICTY’s verdict, such as Biljana Plavšić, asserting that she had done “nothing wrong.” This article sets out how the Tribunal thwarted an expressive value it had purported to achieve through trying and sentencing some of the most egregious crimes known to humankind when they granted UER. This expressive value was an authoritative stigmatization of the perpetrators and their crimes. This perceived destigmatization had, in turn, the capacity to be manipulated by political elites, in an ethnically divided, postconflict society, to challenge the historical record of the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001. This article analyzes the societal ramifications of UER, as it examines local reactions to UER that emerged from 51 interviews conducted in BiH. In January 2019, this practice changed and conditions were attached to early release. Nevertheless, the negative repercussions caused by UER over 18 years provide an important lesson for other ICTs.