Abstract
The Law on Missing Persons from 2004 remains the only legal provision for Bosnian war victims successfully adopted at the state level. It foresaw the creation of a new state institution for the search of the missing, a central registry of all names and a special fund for families. While only some of these promises materialized, the adoption was unprecedented. This chapter discusses the role of missing persons’ families and the process of their state recognition. It presents a case of ‘Optimal Route’ scenario when victim capital can be described as consisting of high salience, authority and resources. It argues that families of Bosnians who went missing during the war were exposed to high levels of external attention because this group included victims whose suffering came to define Bosnian post-war transitional justice: Srebrenica survivors. The Srebrenica genocide of July 1995 not only conferred superior international salience and moral authority upon families of the missing among Bosniaks but Srebrenica victim associations have enhanced their two sources of leverage by huge personal investments in their mobilization resources too. This chapter not only discusses the circumstances of the 2004 change but also the subsequent lack of access to its provisions by victims.
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