Genocide Memorialization through Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Reconciling the Irreconcilable?

Authors

Carna Pistan, Institute for Comparative Federalism, Eurac ResearchFollow

Abstract

This article focuses on the law banning genocide denial and other war crimes and the glorification of convicted war criminals imposed in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the former High Representative Valentin Inzko in mid-2021 to facilitate the country’s reconciliation process. It first positions the genocide denial ban into the vast category of memory laws by examining its content and scope, as well as the reactions and consequences it has provoked up to now. The article maintains that an internationally imposed memory law cannot create reconciliation in a deeply divided society. It shows, on the contrary, that the imposed legislation has triggered an internal memory war that required the intervention of the state-level Constitutional Court. Despite such developments, the article argues that the genocide denial ban represents a much-needed law. Rather than reconciliation being a goal in itself, the imposed law sets the foundations upon which reconciliation may be built in the future. The law preserves the legacy of the ICTY and provides a comprehensive legal framework capable of combatting a flourishing culture of genocide denial and triumphalism. In doing this, it aligns the process of memorialization with the culture of democracy and respect for human rights.

First Page

1

Last Page

25

Acknowledgements

I sincerely thank the editor and reviewers for taking the time to review my manuscript and providing constructive feedback to improve the manuscript. This publication is part of the project We-R (Illusions of eternity: the Constitution as a lieu de mémoire and the problem of collective remembrance in the Western Balkans) that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 898966.

Dedication

This article is dedicated to the women of Srebrenica for their courage and resilience.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.17.3.1950

Recommended Citation

Pistan, Carna (2024) "Genocide Memorialization through Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Reconciling the Irreconcilable?," Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 17: Iss. 3: 1–25.
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.17.3.1950

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License