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22. Finding the Balance: The Scales of Justice in Kosovo
- Publication Date:
- 09-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- An independent, effective, and transparent justice system will be the cornerstone of a stable and democratic society in Kosovo. Ensuring that such a system is developed in a sustainable manner must be one of the top priorities of the United Nations Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the Provisional Institutions of Self- Government (PISG). In this report, ICG argues that although progress has been made, serious obstacles and challenges remain.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, Government, and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe, Kosovo, and United Nations
23. A Half-Hearted Welcome: Refugee Return to Croatia
- Publication Date:
- 12-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Seven years after the end of the war, the issue of refugee return continues to be contentious for Croatia. The government that came to power following parliamentary and presidential elections in January and February 2000 inherited an unsatisfactory legacy of discriminatory laws and practices from its predecessor, to the detriment in particular of ethnic Serb displaced persons and refugees. It found that once the universal international relief that greeted its victory over the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) had worn off, international pressure to remove obstacles to refugee return and reintegration had not ended.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, Government, and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe and Croatia
24. Macedonia's Public Secret: How Corruption Drags The Country Down
- Publication Date:
- 08-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Corruption in Macedonia, especially at high levels of government, is endemic. It has evolved from passive exploitation to active coercion and acquired the capacity not only to retard economic progress but also to feed organised crime and, in turn, political and communal instability. In effect, the state has come to function in important respects as a “racket”, while the racketeers thrive in a culture of impunity.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, Government, and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe and Macedonia
25. Fighting to Control Yugoslavia's Military
- Publication Date:
- 07-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's 24 June 2002 sacking of Yugoslav Army (VJ) Chief of the General Staff Nebojsa Pavkovic was necessary, welcome, and long overdue. The EU, U.S., and NATO acclaimed the move as an effort to assert civilian control over the military, and Kostunica indeed deserves credit for removing a significant obstacle to the country's reintegration with Europe. Nonetheless, the action was probably more the result of the ongoing power struggle between Kostunica and Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic than a genuine effort to bring the military under civilian control or dismantle the extra-constitutional parallel command structures that the post-Milosevic leadership of the country has created within the VJ.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, United Nations, and Serbia
26. Policing The Police In Bosnia: A Further Reform Agenda
- Publication Date:
- 05-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Despite more than six years of increasingly intrusive reforms carried out at the behest of the UN Mission in Bosnia Herzegovina (UNMIBH), the local police cannot yet be counted upon to enforce the law. Too often – like their opposite numbers in the judiciary – nationally partial, under-qualified, underpaid, and sometimes corrupt police officers uphold the law selectively, within a dysfunctional system still controlled by politicised and nationalised interior ministries.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, Human Rights, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Eastern Europe
27. Implementing Equality: The "Constituent Peoples" Decision in Bosnia Herzegovina
- Publication Date:
- 04-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- In July 2000, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia Herzegovina made an historic ruling requiring the two entities, the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska (RS), to amend their constitutions to ensure the full equality of the country's three “constituent peoples” throughout its territory.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Eastern Europe
28. New Balkan Policy Needed
- Author:
- Robert D. Greenberg
- Publication Date:
- 04-2001
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy In Focus
- Abstract:
- In the first months after the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered Kosovo in June 1999 and the Kosovar Albanian refugees returned to their homes, the minority Serbs and Gypsies became the victims of Albanian revenge attacks. The few Serbs who have remained in Kosovo live in scattered enclaves under the protection of KFOR troops. Nevertheless, sporadic violence has continued to erupt, including the bus bombing in February 2001 killing Serbs heading to a religious event. KFOR has been unable to stop the violence from spilling over Kosovo's borders to Macedonia and to Serbia's Presevo Valley region, which has a sizable ethnic Albanian minority. Meanwhile, Macedonia has closed its border with Kosovo, raising the likelihood of a serious economic crisis in Kosovo that could induce further instability there.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- United States, Eastern Europe, Kosovo, Balkans, and Albania
29. The Model of Ethnic Democracy
- Author:
- Sammy Smooha
- Publication Date:
- 10-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Centre for Minority Issues
- Abstract:
- The classical model of the liberal-democratic nation-state is on the decline in the West as a result of globalization, regionalization, multiculturalism, the institutionalization of universal minority rights and the rise of minority ethnonationalism. While western countries are decoupling the nation-state and slowly shifting toward multicultural democracy, some other countries are consolidating an alternative form of a democratic state that is identified with and subservient to a single ethnic nation. This type of political regime, "ethnic democracy," combines the extension of civil and political rights for all permanent residents with an institutionalized ethnic ascendancy of the majority group. The core ethnic nation controls the state and uses it to further its national interests and to grant its members a favored status. The non-core groups are accorded individual and collective rights and allowed to conduct a struggle for change, but treated as second-class citizens and placed under control.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Democratization, and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe
30. The Effectiveness of the Exercise of Jurisdiction by the International Criminal Court: The Issue of Complementarity
- Author:
- Sammy Smooha and Susan Hannah Farbstein
- Publication Date:
- 10-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Centre for Minority Issues
- Abstract:
- The prevalence of collective violence and the agony of mass atrocity may prove to be the twentieth century's most distressing and enduring legacies. From Germany to Uganda, from Cambodia to Sierra Leone, from the Former Yugoslavia to Rwanda, the past hundred years are replete with examples of terrifying violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed against diverse groups of people. Limited attempts to unveil the truth about past horrors, to hold individuals responsible, and to deter future offenses have repeatedly proven inadequate. A dearth of satisfactory moral and legal responses to these crimes often left victims suffering without any sense of reconciliation, while perpetrators routinely enjoyed impunity rather than facing justice.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Democratization, Ethnic Conflict, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Aid
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Germany, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda