Cultivating legal LegitimacyWhat role for civil society?

Producing Legitimacy Conference23rd April 2013

Dr. Alex Jeffrey

Localising International Law: Examining the Public Outreach Strategies of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Dr. Alex Jeffrey and Dr. Michaelina Jakala

i) Project Outline

1. Role and theorisation of ‘state building’ after conflict

2. Placement of ideas of civil society within international interventions

3. Competing conceptualisations of justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina

ii) Institutional Design: Transitional Justice in BiH

• BiH as a site of violations of international humanitarian law 1992-1995

• Around 90 000 unique deaths as a result of the conflict (Zwierzchowski and Tabeau, 2010) and around 2.2 million people internally and internationally displaced

• 1993: International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) UN Security Council Resolution 825

The GFA (Dayton Accords) internal boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) 1995

[The] over-riding priority, as we have discovered in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan and now Iraq, [is] establishing the rule of law - and doing so as quickly as possible. Crime and corruption follow swiftly in the footsteps of war, like a deadly virus. And if the rule of law is not established very swiftly, it does not take long before criminality infects every corner of its host, siphoning off the funds for re-construction, obstructing the process of stabilisation and corrupting every attempt to create decent government and a healthy civil society (Ashdown, 2003: 8).

ii) Institutional Design: Transitional Justice in BiH

ii) Institutional Design: ‘Localising Law’ • Court of BiH established 2000, the Law on the Court

of Bosnia and Herzegovina imposed by OHR in 2002

• Criminal Procedural Code of BiH (24/01/03)• War Crimes Chamber created in 2003, inaugurated

in 2005• Established through two international donor

conferences The Hague (2003), where €15.7 million was pledged, and in Brussels (2006), where donors pledged €7.7 million

• A ‘hybrid’ entity in its inclusion of both domestic and international judiciary: in 2008 16 of the 57 judges, reduced to only 4 by the end of 2011.

ii) Institutional Design: ‘Localising Law’ • Public Information and Outreach Section (PIOS)• “The outreach effort has never been a priority,

it has always been funded by external donors. It as regarded as a nuisance by the judges and lawyers in the Hague, it was something that you have to do” (Former PIOS employee, 9 October 2009)

• PIOS mission to communicate court’s activities and build a ‘sense of ownership’

ii) Institutional Design: Public Outreach • Court Support Network established in 2006—

Žene ženama (Sarajevo), Centri Civilnih Inicijativa (Mostar), Udruženje Prijedorčanki Izvor (Prijedor), Forum Građana Tuzle (Tuzla), Helsinki Komitet (Bijeljina)

• “We used our image to tell people they should trust the Court” (CSN member, Mostar, 3 May 2012)

• Distinction between invited and invented spaces of justice – a recognition of the role played by informal interactions in completing trial processes

ii) Institutional Design: Public Outreach • Initial CSN activities were funded centrally from the

Court and included a dedicated phone line for witnesses and victims to receive information concerning prosecutorial or trial processes

• Loosening of the network ties, a more atomised civil society sector, reflecting wider studies of international involvement with NGOs

• Evidence of neoliberal governmentality of NGO behaviour: the rise of more competitive activity for funding “NGOs have become institutions of general practice” (CSN member, Tuzla June 2012)

iii) Expectations and disappointmentsa) The role of PIOS

• “What do they want from us? The war happened so long ago and organised crime and corruption effects people more today.” (PIOS representative, 24 October 2011)

• “Those people who work in the outreach should get out of the building. People working in that department do not know what is going on in the field. They do not know what is going on, and they rarely attend the events which we organize” (CSN Representative, 20 June 2012)

b) Precarious nature of NGO existence

• “It is very difficult to maintain momentum when there is no funding to continue a project. We finish a project and a while later we might find funding. Then we must build up the project again. We waste a lot of time that way and money” (NGO Representative, 20 June 2012)

• “that is generally the problem of the civil sector as they are chasing money and [...] they know everything about everything [...] we never get quality out of that” (CSN Representative, 24 April 2012)

iii) Expectations and disappointments

“How can we reach other individuals who have survived rape in Prozor, Mostar, Čapljina, Stolac and other places where it took place? How can these people open up and come to institutions in order to claim some kind of benefit at least to cover their medical expenses [...] I think that victims have no protection at all” (President Camp Association, 18 May 2012)“This is a new legal institute, a new legal institution for the Bosnian society. We need to have it explained, victims need to have it explained [...] What kind of facts are established and how we are using the facts?” (CSN Representative, 10 May 2012)

c) Uncertain terms of citizenship/learning citizenship

iii) Expectations and disappointments

Cultivating legal LegitimacyWhat role for civil society?

Producing Legitimacy Conference23rd April 2013

Dr. Alex Jeffrey