Pursuit of Justice and Systematic Sexual Violence: An Exploration of the Victims’ Views from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The wars in the former Yugoslavia have created thousands of victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), established in 1993, has been in charge of trying individuals accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity and providing justice to the victims. Despite the extent of victimization, prior research exploring the victims’ views of the ICTY has been scarce. This paper presents the results of the 2007 survey of victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Out of 600 respondents, 317 (52.5%) reported being raped and the rest reported being victimized otherwise (47.5%). Our results show that the ICTY is the primary decision-maker of their choice, particularly for the trials of military and political leaders. The respondents who reported being raped, beaten, and starved were more supportive of the ICTY than the respondents who were otherwise victimized were. The respondents who evaluated the ICTY as fair and who testified at the Court of BiH were more likely to select the ICTY as the preferred decision-maker. The respondents evaluated only one domestic courts - the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Court of BiH) - as fair.