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The Impact of the ICTY on the Former Yugoslavia: An Anticipatory Postmortem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Marko Milanović
Marko Milanović*
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham School of Law; Vice-President, European Society of International Law; Associate, Belgrade Centre for Human Rights. E-mail: [email protected]
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Extract

A strange thing about the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is that for most of its life, it has thought about its death. The Tribunal, of course, kept getting a reprieve. But today it seems more likely than not that the ICTY will indeed close down sometime in 2017, after the conclusion of the two cases it currently has at trial. Yet even after its closure, the ICTY will continue in a sort of un-death, through the unfortunately named Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, which will complete retrial and appellate proceedings in the cases currently tried before the ICTY.

Type
Symposium on the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 110 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 233 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2016

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References

1 See, e.g., Pocar, Fausto, Completion or Continuation Strategy? Appraising Problems and Possible Developments in Building the Legacy of the ICTY, 6 J. Int’l Crim. Just. 655 (2008)Google Scholar; Roger O’Keefe, International Criminal Law 483–91 (2015).

2 See Judge Theodor Meron, Address to the U.N. Security Council (June 3, 2015), at http://www.icty.org/x/file/Press/Statements%20and%20Speeches/President/150603_president_meron_un_sc_en.pdf.

3 See Pittman, Thomas Wayde, The Road to the Establishment of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals: From Completion to Continuation, 9 J. Int’l Crim. Just. 797 (2011)Google Scholar; Acquaviva, Guido, Was a Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals Really Necessary?, 9 J. Int’l Crim. Just. 789 (2011)Google Scholar.

4 ICTY, Achievements, at http://www.icty.org/sid/324.

5 See also Klarin, Mirko, The Impact of the ICTY Trials on Public Opinion in the Former Yugoslavia, 7 J. Int’l Crim. Just. 89, 90 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See Yaël Ronen, Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Interaction between the ICTY and Domestic Courts in Adjudicating International Crimes, DOMAC/8, Sept. 2011, at http://www.domac.is/media/veldu-flokk/Domac8-2011-YR. pdf.

7 See, e.g., European Commission, 2015 Serbia Progress Report, at 11, available at http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2015/20151110_report_serbia.pdf (“[J]udicial independence is not assured in practice. There is scope for political interference in the recruitment and appointment of judges and prosecutors.”); European Commission, 2014 Bosnia Progress Report, at 12, available at http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2014/20141008-bosnia-and-herzegovina-progress-report_en.pdf (“There are persistent flaws in the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. Political interference has continued.”).

8 Prosecutor v. Tadić, Case No. IT-94-1-AR72, Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction (Int’l Crim. Trib. Former Yugo. Oct. 2, 1995).

9 See Greenwood, Christopher, International Humanitarian Law and the Tadic Case, 7 Eur. J. Int’l L. 265 (1996)Google Scholar; Sandesh Sivakumaran, The Law of Noninternational Armed Conflict 57–61 (2012); Milanović, Marko, On Realistic Utopias and Other Oxymorons: An Essay on Antonio Cassese’s Last Book, 23 Eur. J. Int’l L. 1033, 1046–48 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Other articles in this symposium will be dealing in particular with some of the ICTY’s contributions in developing substantive and procedural international criminal law.

11 ICTY, Achievements– Establishing the Facts, at http://www.icty.org/sid/324#establishing (emphasis added). This language has existed in several iterations for more than a decade on the Tribunal’s website, and could hence be taken as at least partly reflective of its self-perception. For earlier versions, see the Web Archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20050204005624/ http://www.un.org/icty/glance/index.htm and http://web.archive.org/web/20090425055927/ http://www.icty.org/sid/324#establishing.

12 For an argument addressing systemic faults in how international criminal tribunals approach evidence and fact-finding, see Nancy A. Combs, Fact-Finding Without Facts: The Uncertain Evidentiary Foundations of International Criminal Convictions (2010).

13 See infra Part II.

14 Diane F. Orentlicher, Shrinking the Space for Denial: The Impact of the ICTY in Serbia, Open Society Justice Initiative (2008), at http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/serbia_20080501.pdf.

15 In that sense this article is rather self-consciously part of the empirical turn in international law scholarship. See generally Shaffer, Gregory & Ginsburg, Tom, The Empirical Turn in International Legal Scholarship, 106 AJIL 1 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Yuval Shany, Assessing the Effectiveness of International Courts (2014).

16 This is of course not the only possible analytical standpoint. For a very different approach, rooted in the psychoanalytical tradition, see Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering (2001).

17 For a similar approach, see Ford, Stuart, A Social Psychology Model of the Perceived Legitimacy of International Criminal Courts: Implications for the Success of Transitional Justice Mechanisms, 45 Vand. J. Transnat’l L. 405 (2012)Google Scholar.

18 All of the survey results, whether as detailed tables or more brief presentations, are available at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/istrazivanje-javnog-mnenja/stavovi-prema-ratnim-zlocinima-haskom-tribunaludomacem-pravosudu-za-ratne-zlocine/. Unfortunately, most of the detailed tables are available only in Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian.

19 See Ipsos Website, at http://www.ipsos.rs/.

20 See Attitudes Towards War Crimes, the ICTY, and the National Judiciary – 2003, PowerPoint presentation of the survey results, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Attitudes-towards-war-crimes-the-ICTY-and-the-national-judiciary-2003.ppt.

21 Javno Mnenje u Srbiji i Stavovi Prema Međunarodnom Krivičnom Tribunalu za Bivšu Jugoslaviju u Hagu ICTY 2004 – Detaljne Tabele, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Javnomnenje-u-Srbiji-i-stavovi-prema-Me%C4%91unarodnom-krivi%C4%8Dnom-tribunalu-za-biv%C5%A1u-Jugoslaviju-u-Hagu-ICTY-2004-detaljne-tabele.pdf (available in Serbian only; hereinafter 2004 BCHR Serbia Survey).

22 Javno Mnenje u Srbiji i Stavovi Prema Međunarodnom Krivicčnom Tribunalu za Bivšsu Jugoslaviju u Hagu ICTY 2005 – Detaljne Tabele, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Javno-mnenje-u-Srbiji-i-stavovi-prema-Me%C4%91unarodnom-krivi%C4%8Dnom-tribunalu-za-biv%C5%A1u-Jugoslaviju-u-Hagu-ICTY-2005-detaljne-tabele.pdf (available in Serbian only; hereinafter 2005 BCHR Serbia Survey).

23 Javno Mnenje u Srbiji i Stavovi Prema Međunarodnom Krivičnom Tribunalu za Bivšsu Jugoslaviju u Hagu ICTY 2006 – Detaljne Tabele, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Javno-mnenje-u-Srbiji-i-stavovi-prema-Me%C4%91unarodnom-krivi%C4%8Dnom-tribunalu-za-biv%C5%A1u-Jugoslaviju-u-Hagu-ICTY-2006-detaljne-tabele.pdf (available in Serbian only; hereinafter 2006 BCHR Serbia Survey).

24 Javno Mnenje u Srbiji i Stavovi Prema Međunarodnom Krivičnom Tribunalu za Bivšu Jugoslaviju u Hagu ICTY 2009 – Detaljne Tabele, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Javno-mnenje-u-Srbiji-i-stavovi-prema-Me%C4%91unarodnom-krivi%C4%8Dnom-tribunalu-za-biv%C5%A1u-Jugoslaviju-u-Hagu-ICTY-2009-detaljne-tabele.pdf (available in Serbian only; hereinafter 2009 BCHR Serbia Survey).

25 Attitudes Towards War Crimes, the ICTY and the National Judiciary 2011 – Detailed Tables, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Attitudes-towards-war-crimes-the-ICTY-and-the-national-judiciary-2011-detailed-tables.zip (in English; hereinafter 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey).

26 See also 2010 Survey of Public Opinion on Historical Facts, BCHR, available in Serbian only, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/istrazivanje-javnog-mnenja/istrazivanje-javnog-mnenja-o-istorijskim-cinjenicama/, a survey asking many of the same questions as the other ones but in the context of wider research on the knowledge of historical facts within the Serbian population, which fed into an academic project “News from the Past: On the Knowledge, Ignorance, Use and Abuse of History,” by five leading Serbian historians working under the auspices of the BCHR. See also Novosti IZ Prošlosti: Znanje, Neznanje, Upotreba I Zloupotreba Istorije (Vojin Dimitrijević ed., 2010).

27 In absolute numbers, 5, 888,150 out of the total population of 7,186,862. The most numerous minority are the ethnic Hungarians at 3.53% of the population. See Republic of Serbia, 2011 Census Atlas, at 63, at http://pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/Popis2011/Popisni%20atlas%202011.pdf.

28 The 2003 survey was the most limited, focusing only on attitudes towards the ICTY and I will generally not refer to it in my analysis.

29 Javno Mnenje u BiH i Stavovi Prema Međunarodnom Krivičnom Tribunalu za Bivšu Jugoslaviju u Hagu ICTY 2010 – Detaljne Tabele, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Javno-mnenje-u-BiH-i-stavovi-prema-Me%C4%91unarodnom-krivi%C4%8Dnom-tribunalu-za-biv%C5%A1u-Jugoslaviju-u-Hagu-ICTY-2010-detaljne-tabele.pdf (available in Bosnian only; hereinafter 2010 BCHR Bosnia Survey).

30 Javno Mnenje u BiH i Stavovi Prema Međunarodnom Krivičnom Tribunalu za Bivšu Jugoslaviju u Hagu ICTY 2012 – Detaljne Tabele, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Javno-mnenje-u-BiH-i-stavovi-prema-Me%C4%91unarodnom-krivi%C4%8Dnom-tribunalu-za-biv%C5%A1u-Jugoslaviju-u-Hagu-ICTY-2012-detaljne-tabele.pdf (available in Bosnian only; hereinafter 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey).

31 For an accessible overview see Bosnia-Herzegovina Country Profile – Overview, BBC News (Mar. 18, 2015), at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17211415.

32 Including the state and Federation capital of Sarajevo.

33 Including (for survey purposes only) the neutral Brčko district.

34 This was done in order to avoid needlessly antagonizing (or possibly even intimidating or discouraging) respondents, bearing in mind that the surveys were conducted through face-to-face interviews.

35 Preliminary results without ethnic or religious affiliation are available on the official census website at http://www.popis2013.ba/index.php/en/. The last pre-war census was held in 1991.

36 See Rachel Irwin, Dzenana Halimovic, Maja Bjelelac & Dražen Huterer, Bosnian Census Risks Deepening Ethnic Rifts, IWPR (Dec. 6, 2013), at https://iwpr.net/global-voices/bosnian-census-risks-deepening-ethnic-rifts; Valery Perry, How Will the BiH Census Results Be Used?, Democratization Policy Council (Dec. 19, 2014), at http://www.democratizationpolicy.org/how-will-the-bih-census-results-be-used-. In February 2016, a tentative publication date was set for June 2016, but it is by no means clear that the full results will indeed be published as scheduled. See June Date Set for Release of Bosnian Census, Balkan Insight (Feb. 5, 2016), at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/eurostat-sets-roadmap-for-publication-of-2013-census-results-02-04-2016.

37 Javno Mnenje u Hrvatskoj i Stavovi Prema Međunarodnom Krivičnom Tribunalu za Bivšu Jugoslaviju u Hagu ICTY 2010 – Detaljne Tabele, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ Javno-mnenje-u-Hrvatskoj-i-stavovi-prema-Me%C4%91unarodnom-krivi%C4%8Dnom-tribunalu-za-biv%C5%A1u-Jugoslaviju-u-Hagu-ICTY-2010-detaljne-tabele.pdf (in Croatian only; hereinafter 2010 BCHR Croatia Survey).

38 Javno Mnenje u Hrvatskoj i Stavovi Prema Međunarodnom Krivičnom Tribunalu za Bivšu Jugoslaviju u Hagu ICTY 2011 – Detaljne Tabele, at http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/bgcentar/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Javno-mnenje-u-Hrvatskoj-i-stavovi-prema-Me%C4%91unarodnom-krivi%C4%8Dnom-tribunalu-za-biv%C5%A1u-Jugoslaviju-u-Hagu-ICTY-2011-detaljne-tabele.pdf (in Croatian only; hereinafter 2011 BCHR Croatia Survey).

39 See Population by Ethnicity, 2011 Census, available at http://www.dzs.hr/Eng/censuses/census2011/results/htm/e01_01_04/e01_01_04_RH.html.

40 UNDP, Public Perceptions on Transitional Justice (2007), available at http://www.uboconsulting.com/publications/Transitional%20Justice.pdf (hereinafter 2007 UNDP Kosovo Survey).

41 UNDP, Perceptions on Transitional Justice (2012), available at http://www.ks.undp.org/content/dam/kosovo/docs/TJ/English-Web_965257.pdf (hereinafter 2012 UNDP Kosovo Survey).

42 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 130.

43 2011 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 38, at 9.

44 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 9.

45 Id.

46 UNDP 2012 Kosovo Survey, supra note 41, at 17.

47 Id. at 15.

48 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 131.

49 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 10.

50 See also Klarin, supra note 5, at 91–92 (discussing earlier surveys with similar results).

51 2010 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 29, at 10–11.

52 2010 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 37, at 8.

53 2009 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 24, at 13.

54 2004 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 21, at 69; 2005 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 22, at 60; 2006 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 23, at 47.

55 2011 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 38, at 9. See also 2010 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 37, at 8; 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 131; 2009 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 24, at 14.

56 2011 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 38, at 9.

57 This is most apparent from the fact that positive attitudes tend to peak, and negative drop, for those respondents who are still in education, i.e. most likely are in the 16–23 age group, which was the youngest respondent group used in Serbian surveys (compared to 18–29 in Croatia and Bosnia). The age correlation is otherwise completely absent from the 2009 Serbia survey.

58 2010 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 29, at 11; 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 10 (although a slight age correlation exists among the Federation respondents).

59 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 132; 2011 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 38, at 12; 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 14.

60 See also Ronen, supra note 6, at 32.

61 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 15.

62 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 82.

63 On the concepts of group and national narratives, see generally the contributions in Narrative and Identity: Studies in Autobiography, Self and Culture (Jens Brockmeier & Donal Carbaugh eds., 2001). In particular, see Carol Fleisher Feldman, Narratives of National Identity as Group Narratives: Patterns of Interpretative Cognition, in Narrative and Identity, 129, at 143. See also Bar-Tal, Daniel, Oren, Neta & Nets-Zehngut, Rafi, Sociopsychological Analysis of Conflict-Supporting Narratives: A General Framework, 51 J. Peace Res. 662 (2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 On myths of victimhood generated within Serb and Croat nationalist movements, see, e.g., David Bruce Macdonald, Balkan Holocausts?: Serbian and Croatian Victim Centered Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia (2002).

65 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 157, 159.

66 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 138 – 41; see also 2010 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 29, at 135–138.

67 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 139.

68 2011 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 38, at 84–85.

69 Id. at 76–77.

70 See Population by Ethnicity, supra note 39, and accompanying text.

71 See 2012 Kosovo UNDP Survey, supra note 41, at 7.

72 Id.

73 On the different possible varieties of denial, see Eric Gordy, Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial: The Past at Stake in Post-Milosevic Serbia (2013), at 89–118.

74 See Noor, Masi, Shnabel, Nurit, Halabi, Samer & Nadler, Arie, When Suffering Begets Suffering: The Psychology of Competitive Victimhood Between Adversarial Groups in Violent Conflicts, 16 Personality & Soc. Psychol. Rev. 351, 352 (2012)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

75 See, e.g., Prosecutor v. Krstić, Case No. IT-98-33-A, Appeals Judgment (Apr. 19, 2004); Prosecutor v. Blagojević & Jokić, Case No. IT-02-60-A, Appeals Judgment (May 9, 2007); Prosecutor v. Popović et al., Case No. IT-05-88-A, Appeals Judgment (Jan. 30, 2015).

76 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 162.

77 Id. at 169 –70.

78 Id. at 184.

79 An edited version of the video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v-Gk5xOM7ECwI. For more on the video and the Scorpions episode, see Petrović, Vladimir, A Crack in the Wall of Denial: The Scorpions Video in and out of the Courtroom , in Narratives of Justice in and out of the Courtroom: Former Yugoslavia and Beyond 89 (Zarkov, Dubravka & Glasius, Marlies eds., 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gordy, supra note 73, at 124–44.

80 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 161.

81 This compares with the 40% of respondents who heard of the event and said that they believed it happened in response to the tripartite question.

82 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 38.

83 Id.

84 Id. at 46.

85 Id. at 47.

86 Id. at 61– 62.

87 Id.

88 2010 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 29, at 37–73.

89 Id. at 37.

90 Id. at 46.

91 Id. at 61.

92 Chart made on the basis of the 2012 BCHR Bosnia Survey, supra note 30, at 40, 46–47.

93 See, e.g., Prosecutor v. Krajišnik, Case No. IT-00-39-A, Appeals Judgment (Mar. 17, 2009) (dealing with Bijeljina and Zvornik, inter alia); Prosecutor v. Stakić, Case No. IT-97-24-A, Appeals Judgment (Mar. 22, 2006) (Prijedor); Prosecutor v. Galić, Case No. IT-98-29-A, Appeals Judgment (Nov. 30, 2006) (Sarajevo); Prosecutor v. Delić, Case No. IT-04-83, Trial Judgment (Sept. 15, 2008) (mujahedeen crimes near Travnik); Prosecutor v. Delalić et al., Case No. IT-96-21-A, Appeals Judgment (Feb. 20, 2001) (Čelebići camp).

94 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 169.

95 Id.

96 Id. at 169. The response base is the total respondent population in Serbia. Note that one of the crimes in question did not take place in Croatia itself (the intimidation of ethnic Croats in Srem, a part of Serbia).

97 2011 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 38, at 35. The response base is the total respondent population in Croatia.

98 2011 BCHR Serbia Survey, supra note 25, at 169. The response base is the total respondent population in Serbia.

99 See supra note 71, and accompanying text.

100 See also 2011 BCHR Croatia Survey, supra note 38, at 58 (showing that only 28% of Croatian respondents were prepared to accept ICTY judgments finding that Croatian soldiers committed war crimes).

101 See also Ronen, supra note 6, at 32.

102 See Orentlicher, supra note 14, at 13 (discussing different possible definitions of impact).

103 UNDP 2012 Kosovo Survey, supra note 41, at 17.

104 See Prosecutor v. Šainović et al., Case No. IT-05-87, Trial Judgment (Feb. 26, 2009).

105 See Prosecutor v. Haradinaj et al., Case No. IT-04-84, Trial Judgment (Apr. 3, 2008); Prosecutor v. Haradinaj, Case No. IT-04-84-A, Appeals Judgement (Sept. 23, 2010); Prosecutor v. Haradinaj, Case No. IT-04-84bis -T, Retrial Judgment (Nov. 29, 2012). Note that the retrial judgment acquitting the two defendants was handed down just as the 2012 UNDP survey was being conducted.

106 The way the questions themselves were framed, and indeed the order in which they were asked, could obviously also have had an effect on the responses provided. See generally Roger Tourangeau, Lance J. Rips & Kenneth Rasinski, The Psychology of Survey Response 255–88 (2000) (extensively discussing misreporting in surveys regarding sensitive questions).

107 See supra note 94, and accompanying text.

108 See, e.g., Christine Bell, Peace Agreements and Human Rights 283 (2004); Karinvon Hippel, Democracy by force: U.S. Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War World 150–51, 197–98 (2000); Gow, James, The ICTY, War Crimes Enforcement and Dayton: The Ghost in the Machine, in Internationalized State-Building After Violent Conflict: Bosnia Ten Years After Dayton 47, 55 (Weller, Marc & Wolff, Stefan eds., 2007)Google Scholar.

109 See generally Mathias Dobbels, Serbia and the ICTY: How Effective Is EU Conditionality?, College of Europe EU Diplomacy Paper 6/2009, at http://aei.pitt.edu/11556/; Orentlicher, supra note 14, at 25–27.

110 See Twelve Guilty of Djindjic Murder, BBC News (May 23, 2007), at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6683463.stm. See also Petrović, supra note 79, at 99; Gordy, supra note 73, at 69–86.

111 See generally Serbia Profile – Leaders, BBC News (Aug. 5, 2015), at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17912584. See also Lily Lynch, The Balkanist Guide to the Serbian Elections: Party Edition, Balkanist (Mar. 14, 2014), at http://balkanist.net/balkanist-guide-serbian-elections-party-edition/.

112 In the 2014 parliamentary elections, the Serbian Progressive Party (with a few minor parties on its list) won 48.35% of the vote, which translated to 158 out of 250 seats in the parliament. The next party in line—the Socialist Party of Serbia, which used to be led by Slobodan Milosevic—won 13.49% of the vote and forty-four seats in parliament, and is in the ruling coalition. The largest opposition party is the Democratic Party, which won 6.03% of the vote and nineteen seats in parliament. See National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, Number of Mandates Won–XNational Assembly Convocation, at http://www.parlament.gov.rs/national-assembly/national-assembly-in-numbers.1743.html. Public opinion polls consistently show that the levels of public support remain broadly the same. See, e.g., Poll: Opposition Has Support of 20 Pct of Voters, B92 (Jan. 21, 2015), at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2015&mm=01&dd=21&nav_id=92937.

113 See also Orentlicher, supra note 14, at 17 (discussing removal of indictees from Serbian politics).

114 The story of the farcical mess that has been the Šešelj trial is a long and complicated one. See Gordy, supra note 73, at 156–59; Sluiter, Göran, Compromising the Authority of International Criminal Justice: How Vojislav Šešelj Runs His Trial, 5 J. Int’l Crim. Just. 529 (2007)Google Scholar; Alex Fielding, The Seselj Mess Just Got Messier Following His Provisional Release to Serbia, Beyond the Hague (Nov. 24, 2014), at http://beyondthehague.com/2014/11/24/the-seselj-mess-just-got-messier-following-his-provisional-release-to-serbia/; Daisy Sindelar, In Releasing Seselj, ICTY Solves One Problem—But Creates Many Others, Radio Free Europe (Nov. 20, 2014), at http://www.rferl.org/content/balkans-seselj-hague-release-creates-problems/26702184.html.

115 See supra note 80, and accompanying text.

116 See the Colbert Report, “The Word” segment (Comedy Central broadcast Oct. 17, 2005), at http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/63ite2/the-word—truthiness (“That’s where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen, the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your stomach than in your head? Look it up. Now, somebody is going to say ‘I did look that up, and it’s wrong.’ Well, mister, that’s because you looked it up in a book. Next time, try looking it up in your gut. I did, and my gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works . . . . The truthiness is anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.”) See also Merriam-Webster, 2006 Word of the Year, at http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-year/2006-word-of-the-year.htm (defining truthiness as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”).

117 See, e.g., Julian Borger, War Is Over—Now Serbs and Bosniaks Fight to Win Control of a Brutal History, The Guardian (Mar. 23, 2014), at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/23/war-serbs-bosniaks-history-visegrad (reporting on the struggle over collective memory in the town of Višegrad, including the following words of a war crime-survivor: “Those who committed the war crimes against us are still winning. They are killing our truth.” (emphasis added)).

118 See, e.g., Nationalists with Divided Goals Extend Hold over Bosnia in Vote, Reuters (Oct. 13, 2014), at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/13/us-bosnia-election-nationalists-idUSKCN0I21AY20141013 (reporting on the results of the 2014 Bosnian elections, and noting that “[n]ationalists deeply divided over the future of Bosnia have extended their rule over the Balkan country, offering scant hope of genuine change to a political system designed to end a war but seen as ineffective in peace . . . . All three [nationalist parties] command huge networks of political patronage through the power of public sector jobs, of which there are many given Bosnia’s highly decentralised system of power.”); Vučić’s Initiative Equalizes the Responsibility for the War, Radio Free Europe (Aug. 17, 2015), at http://www.recom.link/most-rse-vuciceva-inicijativa-izjednacava-odgovornost-za-rat/ (prominent human rights activist Nataša Kandić stating that “It’s been a long time since the state of inter-ethnic relations was as bad as it is now in 2015.”).

119 See also Elazar Barkan and Belma Bećirbašić, The Politics of Memory, Victimization, and Activism in Post conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Historical Justice and Memory 95, 98 (Klaus Neumann & Janna Thompson eds., 2015) (“Each ethnic group in Bosnia and Herzegovina advocates its own particular ‘ethnic truth’—an interpretation of the past that is enslaved to dominant interests—and thereby has perpetuated the conflict. The fierce political battle between competing truths, memories, and ethnic identities has intensified in the past decade, especially because of the rise of a new generation of ethno-nationalist parties.”).

120 Refik Hodžić, Twenty Years Since Srebrenica: No Reconciliation, We’re Still at War, Balkanist (June 29, 2015), at http://balkanist.net/twenty-years-since-srebrenica-no-reconciliation-were-still-at-war/.

121 Apparently Zhou did not mean that French Revolution, but was rather referring to the events of 1968. See Richard McGregor, Zhou’s Cryptic Caution Lost in Translation, Financial Times (June 10, 2011), at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/74916db6-938d-11e0-922e-00144feab49a.html#axzz3jZJxzhJ3.

122 Cf. Gordy, supra note 73, at 168–70; Orentlicher, supra note 14, at 23.

123 Supra note 11.

124 See Marko Milanović, Establishing the Facts About Mass Atrocities: Accounting for the Failure of the ICTY to Persuade Target Audiences, Geo. J. Int’l L. (forthcoming).

125 See, e.g., Iavor Rangelov, Nationalism and the Rule of Law: Lessons from the Balkans and Beyond 172 (2014); Klarin, supra note 5, at 90; Orentlicher, supra note 14, at 27.

126 See supra Part II, Victims and Perpetrators.

127 See Bar-Tal, Daniel, Chernyak-Hai, Lily, Schori, Noa & Gundar, Ayelet, A Sense of Self-Perceived Collective Victimhood in Intractable Conflicts, 91 Int’l Rev. Red Cross 229, 250–51 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (discussing links between a sense of collective victimization and the readiness to accept a standard conflict narrative).

128 See Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century 265–66 (2000).

129 Cf. Kahan, Dan, Fixing the Communications Failure, 463 Nature 296 (2010)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed (discussing the process of “cultural cognition” which leads to attitude polarization when people are exposed to counter-attitudinal scientific evidence).

130 See Ford, supra note 17, at 463– 64.