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implementation. An impressive effort composed ofmany organizations is underway throughout the entireformer Yugoslavia to push for a regional truth commission,known as RECOM. Advocates of the process wantRECOM to include the participation of victims, civilsociety organizations and all of the governments ofnations that were party to the conflicts. Though doubtsremain about the chances of securing formal supportfrom the governments, Croatian President Ivo Josipovichas been public in his support of the initiative andsuggested his counterparts also look into possible meansof implementation.It is often unclear what trials can accomplish ontheir own. At times, trial proponents in the fieldof transitional justice have scaled back expectationsin recent years, in no small part due to the mixedperformance of the ad hoc tribunals. Theyhave the luxury of falling back on a legalisticpremise – that the prosecution of many cases should notbe viewed as an option but as required by internationallaw, given that the Genocide Convention, the TortureConvention and “grave breaches” provision of theGeneva Conventions require states to prosecute orextradite offenders. (A more controversial argument isthat customary international law now requires nationsto prosecute gross human rights violations.) Still,there remains a belief that war crimes cases, when wellconducted, can help promote the rule of law, protectand elevate the rights of victims, remove dangerouscriminals from the streets and establish a credible legalrecord of atrocities. Such a legal record can at leastcontribute to an accurate understanding of past crimesthat is shared among different ethnic groups.That last development would surely be transformativein Serbia, as elsewhere in the region, but it has yet tomaterialize. Serbs may accept the results of individualdomestic cases, but not the truth about the broaderpatterns of atrocities. In the 2011 OSCE public opinionpoll, 69 percent of those interviewed believed thatSerbs suffered the most during the wars. Therespondents believed that Croats, Albanians andBosniaks (in that order) committed the most crimesduring the wars, with Serbs committing the fewest. Inaddition, 52 percent either did not know what happenedin Srebrenica, thought the crimes were made up orthat there were casualties in battle but no executions;only 15 percent believed the truth of what actuallyhappened, that more than 7,000 Bosniaks wereexecuted. From those measures, neither the ICTY northe domestic War Crimes Chamber appear to havecontributed to a shared, accurate understanding of theevents of the wars.At least part of the explanation for the ICTY’s failurein this area is presented in Jelena Subotic’s highlyregarded book, “Hijacked Justice,” which offers a negativeassessment of transitional justice efforts in the formerYugoslavia. Her chief contention with Serbia is that theuse of conditionality – the lure of economic aid andEU membership to secure cooperation with the ICTY,specifically, the arrests of suspects – turned war crimesaccountability into a “business transition” that avoided anytrue national reckoning of the past. Subotic recounts howthe post-Milosevic Kostunica government orchestrated aseries of “voluntary surrenders” that had ICTY indicteestransferred amidst praises for their patriotism andsacrifice – without mentioning the nature of the allegedcrimes or the victims. The prospect of EU membershipclearly contributed to the May 2008 election of BorisTadic’s Democratic Party, which created a more favorableenvironment for war crimes accountability efforts. Suboticnevertheless contends that the EU and Serbia’s numbersbasedapproach to compliance limited the positive effectsthat a more genuine transitional justice strategy mighthave had on Serbian society and governmental institutions.The prevailing wisdom also places blame on the ICTYitself for failing to invest enough resources into outreachactivities to explain its mission and the composition of thecases, in effect allowing its message to become “hijacked”by nationalist politicians. In fact, the ICTY has arrangeda number of impressive outreach activities throughoutthe region, but these efforts are seen as too little, too late.The domestic system has received praise for its publicinformation efforts and proactive relationship with themedia. In surveys of journalists in Serbia, Vukcevic and hisdeputy Vekaric have been named the “most communicativestate officials.” However, there is limited media or publicinterest in the cases. In the OSCE polls, very few Serbscould identify any specific cases that have occurred in thedomestic chamber. (Most observers agree that televisingchamber proceedings would help.)Nevertheless, Vukcevic believes that the domestic caseshave been contributing to reconciliation.“In my view, the greatest paradox lies in the fact that casesagainst individual perpetrators do more for the processof reconciliation than those against top-level indictees,”he explained. “Namely, it is generally easier for peopleto identify themselves with the victim when they hearthat he or she was killed, raped or tortured by a concreteindividual. Cases against the highest government officialsare complicated and remote from ordinary people."In addition, the legal records of both the ICTY andSerbia’s War Crimes Chamber – the most tangible outcomesunder their control – continue to grow. How that record isused may be largely out of the courts’ control, but itsdevelopment is consistent with any number of worthwhiletransitional justice goals. A more critical interpretation ofthe domestic cases might question whether their cumulativeeffect would unduly minimize state complicity. But evenKandic does not qualify her support for the existence of thesystem itself.I s s u e 13 51 l a w d r a g o n . c o m