Source: (2013) International Criminal Law Review 13:43-62.
The debate on how to deal with the past in Serhia is still ongoing almost twenty years after the
end of the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia. From the very start the international community
has put major emphasis on the criminal prosecution and conviction of the persons
mostly responsible for the war crimes in the region, both by establishing the ICTY and encouraging
national prosecutions. In the discussions about ‘dealing with the past’ in Serbia little if
any attention has heen devoted to the views and expectations of the local population, although
they provide an additional source of information ahout the strategies and the mechanisms for
dealing with the crimes of the past and reconstructing the fiiture. The objective of this chapter
is to find out what people in Serhia think ahout the central dehates around impunity and
accountability for war crimes, and more specifically which importance they attach to criminal
prosecutions and truth commissions in the country For this purpose, it reports about the main
findings of a quantitative survey conducted in Serbia in 2007, and concludes that the picture is
not hlack and white but complex instead. (authors’ abstract)
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