Nora's frames

The Right to Justice / legal responses to past gross human rights violations

The Right to Know Human Losses

War Crimes Prosecution

• An estimated 13’754 persons died in connection with the 1998 - 1999 conflict
• Enforced Disappearance
• From an estimated total of 5’878 persons, currently a 1’621 persons are still listed as missing
• More than 220,000 houses destroyed

There is always a tendency to name formal initiatives with those attributed to retributive justice and ‘informal’ or alternative initiatives with restorative justice.

Non-Judicial Truth–Seeking Mechanisms

Civil society organizations are advocating to establish a regional fact-finding body or ‘truth’ commission (ReCom) concerning the wars in former Yugoslavia

Archives

A significant amount of human rights documentation is stored in archives outside of Kosovo

Right to Reparation

• Both Kosovo-Albanian and – non-Albanian victims are demanding material compensation for damages suffered;
• Programs for psycho-social accompaniment of victims are available, but not at levels commensurate with the problem;
• There has been no official apology on the part of the Serbian government for widespread and systematic violations of human rights in the period 1989 – 1999.

Guarantees of Non-Recurrence

Judicial Reform

• The vetting and re-appointment of judges and prosecutors has been completed, but has had a negative effect on human resources
• Public officials and persons standing for elective office may need to be screened with regard to their involve-ment with conflict-related crimes and corruption
• Recruitment and capacity-building in specialized fields such as war crimes prosecution is necessary

The code of Leke Dukagjini (1410-81) formalized the oral Law regulating Albanian community life in the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, the practice of these codes potential dates 2000 to 3000 years ago and presents the fundamental costmary law employed in the Middle Ages in almost all areas of Albanian settlement. (Fox 1989). The laws applied equally to ethnic Albanian Christians and Moslems (given the fact that in the XV century Albanians were predominantly Catholics).

Hence ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have created their own interpretation of CLD focusing more on the concept of revenge and exaggerated sense of honor than on reconciliation. The society has not forgotten the violence promoting mechanisms of revenge codes...but has forgotten or holds it to be superfluous to put a stop to the escalation of violence. (Waldmann 2001). Nevertheless the aim of the original laws was to achieve social order and the laws contained many elements, though seldom practiced today that encouraged reconciliation and mediation as mechanisms for solving conflicts… (Retrieved from: restoring justice after large scale violent conflicts book, chapter 7)

Solid contextual analysis of what changes are needed

The mission of this project is to extract what reconciliation means in the Kosovo and Western Balkans context, in order to contribute to the general post-conflict peace building approach in the region. The need for this project springs from the fact that there is no common understanding of what reconciliation in Kosovo and the Western Balkan is, and how this process can be achieved by stressing and using our local ‘informal’ alternatives?