Geoffrey Nice Foundation

Introduction

The work done by international and national criminal tribunals dealing with mass atrocities has highlighted the need to research the impact of legal proceedings concerned with war crimes on historical and other interpretations of the causes and consequences of armed conflicts and of the atrocities committed in armed conflicts.

Objectives

The Master Class’s objective is to advance a multidisciplinary approach to international criminal justice through exploration of legal, historical, political and sociological methodologies with students of different disciplines from many countries.

The multi-national faculty of lecturers includes academics with backgrounds in law, history, political science and sociology, together with politicians, practicing international lawyers and human rights activists.

The core case study will be the massacre at Srebrenica, that occurred 20 years ago and that has been found by international courts to have been a genocide. The human rights tragedy of North Korea – where genocide has yet to be alleged in terms – has seen much recent activity aimed at bringing the problems of North Korea to the ICC before historic and present human rights atrocities are allowed to degrade. It provides a forward-looking problem to serve as a counterpoint to historic Srebrenica.

The Master Class’s core cohort of students from the Balkans is enlarged by inclusion of participants from Western Europe and the USA. These students from outside the region where mass atrocities occurred will enrich their academic curricula by the interdisciplinary approach of the Class and by interaction with colleagues from the region.

Description of the Concept

This Master Class will cover legal, political and historical aspects of genocide.

The course will deal, on the one hand, with the general topic of genocide identifying the ‘politics of genocide’ (in particular the politics lying behind genocide allegations when they are first made and politically motivated interference that can occur in the course of genocide trials) and, on the other hand, with the failure of the International Community to prevent genocidal crimes from happening, while they are in progress or in the future.

More specifically, the Master Class will deal with the genocide in BiH in the 1990s.

In 1993 the UN, despite – perhaps because of – its inability to stop the war and the mass atrocities committed against Bosnian Muslim civilians, established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as the first post-Nuremburg international criminal tribunal. Students on the course may conclude, on the basis of multidisciplinary analysis, that the ICTY’s foundation did not, and could not, compensate for failures at the political, diplomatic and military levels to stop the war in BiH. They will learn how the ICTY’s functioning as a court did not prevent the war in Kosovo in 1999, or facilitate smooth normalisation of relations in the post-conflict period that followed the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, or deliver substantial reconciliation.

History: Mass atrocities trials produce extensive trial records that eventually become historical sources. At every war crimes trial, history will inevitably be discussed because, first, all sides – prosecution and all accused – will use the historical background to explain the conflict and its violent nature from their points of view. Second, all sides might call expert witnesses on history to inform or educate the judges about the conflict. Third, every trial record will become a historical source and might contribute to new or extended historical interpretations of the given historical period. Yet, the lawyers and judges may draw very different conclusions from those drawn by historians, despite working from the same trial records.

Politics: New post-conflict political elites will try to interpret the ‘Legal Narrative’ as told in the courtroom and Legal Justice as articulated in court judgments to their own ends. There are different ways for political elites to (ab)use mass atrocities trials in achieving objectives other than justice. They might use trials to influence the processes of shaping collective memory about the conflict or by stressing the wrongdoings and criminality of the ‘other side’ in the conflict while downplaying the role of their own side. They might try to use the existence of war crimes courts to get rid of political rivals by influencing the indictment strategy of the courts – for example, by selectivity in what incriminatory evidence they provide to an international prosecutor from state archives. They may use the mass atrocities trials for immediate political objectives, such as accession to the EU.

Society: What is the impact of mass atrocities trials on post-conflict societies? What is the reaction of the victims, of the Media and of NGOs? How easy or difficult is it for non-specialists to understand legal proceedings and to appreciate the impact of ‘Retributive Justice’, which is perpetrator oriented? What about ‘Restorative Justice’, which is victim oriented? How does one achieve reconciliation in post-conflict societies where the perpetrators and victims remain living close to, or even intermingled with, each other? Should reconciliation be a goal of Retributive Justice at all?

Target Group: MA and PhD students of Law, History, Sociology, Politics, International Relations, Journalism, European Studies and related subjects.

SREBRENICA

The gravest crimes in BiH happened two full years after the ICTY was created and some four years after there had been daily presence in the territory of ‘internationals’, many of whom foresaw what was to come.

Against this background the Srebrenica narrative is still developing but Victims are losing their voice with the passage of time. Official reports and the records of trials at the ICTY do not provide a full account of what happened because there may be too many powerful parties interested in obscuring the truth.

Twenty years after these awful events, much research and teaching needs to be done in order to facilitate a proper reconstruction of how this tragedy occurred. Present incomplete narratives may allow for future manipulation at the hands of any who could profit from calculated interpretation or reinterpretation of history.

The politics of genocide does not stop with the ending of the killings. In post-conflict societies the struggle for control of the historical narrative of the conflict takes over. The historical interpretation of mass atrocities in BiH includes competing narratives, which reflect – and may serve to perpetuate – the pre-conflict ideological divides between the parties to the conflict. Twenty Years after the genocide at Srebrenica, despite legal determinations at national and international courts that the crime of genocide had been committed there, denial of genocide has been introduced as a historical counter-narrative. Attempts, sometimes successful, to take control of the prevailing historical narrative continue while retributive and restorative justice mechanisms struggle to respond adequately to the needs of the survivors of mass atrocities.

This Master Class will offer legal, historical, political and societal insights into the politics of genocide by addressing the court judgments, the process of writing history and the political mechanisms that deal in their separate ways with the legacy of genocide locally, as well as with the broader political and societal processes of reconciliation and integration.

TOPICS - PROGRAMME

FIRST WEEK

  • Why Here?
  • War crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide: Why bother?
  • The Aetiology and Genesis of Genocide and Mass Atrocities;
  • The Development of Legal response to Genocide from 1948 to Present;
  • Civil Society, Human Rights Activism and Fact Finding: North Korea and Myanmar;
  • North Korea and UN Commission of Inquiry;
  • North Korea and the ICC; Politics of Mass Atrocities in North-Korea;

SECOND WEEK

  • History of the Yugoslav Conflict According to the ICTY Records;
  • Genocide and Politics of Numbers;
  • History of Srebrenica Genocide as Told at the ICTY;
  • Denial of Srebrenica Genocide;
  • Serbia and the Politics of Genocide;
  • The ICJ Genocide Lawsuit ‘BiH vs. Serbia’;
  • Justice for Srebrenica Victims: Criminal Trials or Civil Lawsuits?
  • Reconstruction of the Srebrenica History and the Missing Records
  • Retributive, Restorative Justice and Search for the Truth: a Victims Perspective;
  • Politics of Genocide in BIH.

COURSE EVALUATION will be by each student and faculty member being able to speak direct to camera for up to 3 minutes explaining what, if anything, the course has done for her/ him without assessing other individuals on the course in any way.

Lecturers

Location and accomodation

  • Wolfgang Petritsch, Former High Representative for BiH, 1999-2002, AT.
  • Bert Bakker, former Dutch MP in charge of Srebrenica parliamentary survey, The Hague, NL
  • Jakub Bijak (Former ICTY Demographer, University of Southampton, UK)
  • Lord Iain Bonomy, Former ICTY Judge, UK
  • Kate Clark, NGO Hasan Nuhanović Foundation; War Reparations Centre, University of Amsterdam, NL
  • Ivanka Dodovska, University of Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
  • Professor Robert Donia, Michigan University, USA
  • Ejup Ganić, member of the war time BiH Presidency
  • Professor Axel Hagedom. International lawyer, Van Diepen&van den Kroef Attorneys, Amsterdam, NL
  • Ivo Jopsipović, former President of Croatia
  • Hikmet Karćić, Human Rights Researcher and Activist, Sarajevo, BiH
  • Judge Joanna Korner, former ICTY Prosecutor, London, UK
  • Professor Giylieta Mushkolay, University of Prishtina, Kosovo
  • The Inter-University Centre is beside City Walls about 200 metres from he main gate to the old city
  • Accommodation will be provided in ‘cloisters’ run by nuns immediately next door to the Inter-University Centre and (as it happens) with rear doors that open onto the town’s local beach that tourists never discover. Rooms all adequate – some very good quality.
  • It is hoped that all lecturers will stay in cloisters for reasons of cost but also – principally – because it confirms for students the non-hierarchical approach of the Programme

Structure of the programme

12 days divided into two ‘weeks’ with one half or one day free in the middle (privileged guided sightseeing of Dubrovnik will be offered by the University Centre on this day)

First week with concentrate on law, history politics dealing with mass atrocities generally

Second week will concentrate on the conflicts of the former Yugoslavia and in particular on Srebrenica. The course will end one day before 11 July, the 20th anniversary of the start of the Srebrenica genocide with possibility of travel from Dubrovnik to Sarajevo or Srebrenica to be present at one or more of the events marking the anniversary (to be dealt with in Dubrovnik or independently by students and faculty)

  • Students will be divided into four groups for various group exercises – groups probably fixed for duration of course, possibly to be reconstructed after first week.
  • Mornings will be lectures/ seminars with Q and A / discussions to follow
  • Afternoons will have more and different involvement of students and some leadership by students (e.g. of plenary discussions):
  • Two ‘Running’ exercises of:
    • The taking of oral history to demonstrate one way of recording complex events (using lecturers as subjects of oral histories)
    • A few elements of a criminal trial – to show the way criminal trials record histories
  • Use of films for discussion of related topics – up to four films. (if two rooms with projectors available may split whole class into 2 groups for viewing and discussion for comparison of findings)
  • Plenary sessions led by students as well as by faculty
  • Short lectures by students

Alumni

Faculty Members

List of students

  • Diego Arria
  • Bert Bakker
  • Jakub Bijak
  • Sonja Biserko
  • Lord Iain Bonomy
  • Kate Clark
  • Robert Donia
  • Donald Ferencz
  • Axel Hagedom
  • Hikmet Karčić
  • Joanna Korner
  • Sir Geoffrey Nice
  • Wolfgang Petritsch
  • Benedict Rogers
  • Nena Tromp
  • Jennie Collis, Inner Temple
    • Emma Bennis
    • Ivana Bošnjaković
    • Jamie Brown
    • Pinar Cagli
    • Miloš Ćirić
    •  Jelena Džombić
    •  Beril Eski
    • Samir Forić
    • Meliş Gebes
    • Lauren Gomer
    • Rebecca Hadgett
    • Natasha Jackson
    • Amie Kamanda
    • Halil Kosumi
    • Harriet Lodge
    •  Benjamina Londrc
    • Diana Mudrinić
    • Fezile Osum
    • Rehana Popal
    • Nikola Puharić
    • Branimir Renje
    • Wasja Rijs
    •  Ajla Škrbić
    • Edward Smith
    • Jonas Ruben Spitstra
    • Jovana Spremo
    • Christopher Sykes
    • Leutrim Syla
    • Edona Tolaj
    • Tabitha Nice

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