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Transitional justice has risen to the forefront of international criminal law as a means by which countries seek accountability for mass atrocities or widespread human rights abuses. The international community has lauded large-scale efforts to use international legal structures as a means of “restoring” post-conflict societies. Yet little empirical evidence has been offered as to their effectiveness. My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity attempts to gauge the impact of transitional justice operations in societies recovering from large-scale ethnic and religious conflict, principally in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In it, Eric Stover and Harvey Weinstein advance a compelling argument that both international and local trials do surprisingly little to advance justice and reconciliation as it is perceived by the communities of survivors.
Stover and Weinstein have assembled an impressive cadre of scholars and practitioners whose works represent a broad spectrum of fields. Many have longstanding ties to the regions they examine. Although the authors draw from a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods, all authors advocate for a holistic approach to community rebuilding, arguing that a multi-systemic approach to rebuilding is essential for addressing the individual and institutional needs of those affected by the conflicts. The work is grouped into three sections. The first section analyzes institutional responses to mass atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and how they relate, or often clash with, communities’ perceptions of justice and reconciliation. The sec-
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ond set of chapters assesses communities’ perspectives on the process of social reconstruction. The final section briefly highlights individual responses to mass atrocities.
A pervasive theme emerging from the first six chapters is communities’ deep distrust of international tribunals. Drawing from a survey of Bosnian legal professionals, Weinstein and Fletcher suggest that those of Serb and Croat nationality believe the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”) has shown political bias against members from their respective ethnic groups. The ethnically Serb and Croat legal professionals believe the nation would be better served by a body that works more directly to reform the corrupt Bosnian legal system, instead of operating completely independent of it. Other chapters criticize the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (“ICTR”) and the ICTY for their insensitivity toward witnesses and survivors or their dismissive attitude towards local forms of conflict resolution. The chapter by Karekezi, Nshimiyimana, and Mutamba creates an interesting extension of this topic by highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of gacaca, a community-based court system adapted from the traditional Rwandan system of dispute resolution, which draws heavily on community participation to adjudicate all but the most serious genocide offenses.
The second group of chapters argues that while criminal tribunals fulfill an essential function of naming the perpetrators of mass conflicts, they do not bring about the more holistic effects often ascribed to them including repairing society and restoring the survivors. For example, Freedman et al. reveal how the public education system supports the propagation of stereotypes and inter-ethnic hatred in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Rwanda. Their work delineates how a lack of public education about the work of the ICTR and ICTY, combined with negative government propaganda, further insulates communities from positive gains made by the tribunals.
The final three chapters take a closer look at how genocide has unraveled the social fabric of Bosnia and Croatia, including a chapter in which Blotner examines how artists have responded to the genocide, and a chapter by Ajdu-kovic and Corkalo that presents interview data with a handful of Serbs and Croats who were compelled to end a close inter-group relationship as a result of the conflict. This section provides a human slant to the conflict, but lacks the sweeping impact of the other chapters.
The holistic framework provides a strong complement to the contributors’ works. By analyzing the polycentric quality of social relations in the process of rebuilding, the authors make an evocative argument that the impact of the tribunals cannot be measured on a single plane. These arguments seem best supported by focus group data, which use open-ended questions to elicit responses beyond the scope of common considerations of the tribunals’ impact. At times, however, the research in My Neighbor, My Enemy perhaps depends too heavily on qualitative methods, particularly closed-ended survey questions, to draw out social perceptions of stereotypes or “ethnic distance.”
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The book’s use as a prescriptive work is limited. It is evident that the editors have gone to great lengths to present a diversity of perspectives, drawing from inter-disciplinary research, representing the views of most parties affected by mass conflicts, and cautioning readers against making false assumptions about the meaning of ambiguous or loaded terms in the international justice lexicon. In spite of this thorough approach, the reader hoping to harmonize these diverse criticisms into a set of best practices receives little practical help from this book.
The principal strength of the volume is its creation of a forum by which genocide and ethnic cleansing survivors can contribute to the international dialogue on transitional justice. Their apathy or even outright distrust of international efforts toward reparations offers a compelling counterpoint to the common assumption that the ICTR and ICTY are indeed serving the best interests of the survivors. My Neighbor, My Enemy strikes a note of caution against the dangers of oversimplifying both the goals and outcomes of international criminal tribunals. It also challenges members of the international community to acknowledge the limitations of the tribunals in concert with their strengths.
—Anna Ferrari
HLSHRJ@law.harvard.edu
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Wednesday, 27-Sep-2006 09:28:36 EDT