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Abstract
A growing trend in post-war transitional justice posits that structural conditions explain why only some post-war countries award material assistance to survivors of war atrocities. While these explanations provide critical insights into the processes behind compensation adoption across post-war states, they do not explain the great variance in which victims obtain compensation within post-war countries. Using the case of missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a victim category that secured compensation in 2004, I present a new model to explain compensation using a rationalist approach. The paper shows that compensation adoption is primarily driven by an opportune combination of three factors: international salience (defined as the international attention given to the victim category and/or prioritisation of its demands), moral authority (defined as the level of perceived domestic deservingness for compensation) and mobilisation resources (defined as the victim category's capacities to mobilise and the quality of its networks). Drawing on fieldwork, this article shows that the prominence of the Srebrenica genocide propelled the issue of missing persons on to domestic and external agendas, affording the surviving families an opportunity to demand special compensation.
Highlights
In an unprecedented decision, the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia or BiH) in 2004 adopted the Law on Missing Persons (‘Law’), which remains the only legal provision for Bosnian war victims at the central state level
Using legal leverage and their growing networks, Srebrenica survivors grew into potent activists and campaigners. Only rarely did they directly attack the Bosniak government in Sarajevo that functioned as an Combined with the high moral authority and international salience in the summer of 2004, families of missing persons mainly represented by the Srebrenica victims were well positioned to negotiate with the central government and succeed
The family associations formally secured compensation at the state level, unlike other victims in Bosnia, due to their ability to mobilise, as well as leverage their international salience and high moral authority among Bosniaks; this would not have been possible if the context differed
Summary
The Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia or BiH) in 2004 adopted the Law on Missing Persons (‘Law’), which remains the only legal provision for Bosnian war victims at the central state level. I define the victim category of families of missing persons and explain the 2004 Law. In the main part of this paper, I trace the developments that led to its adoption and explain how each of the factors influenced the result.
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