Afraid to Cry Wolf: Human Rights Activists’ Struggle of Transnational Accountability Efforts in the Balkans

2012 ◽  
pp. 201-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnaud Kurze ◽  
Iva Vukusic
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Balkans

Coming Home to a Foreign Land

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-26
Author(s):  
Michael Daxner
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Foreign Land ◽  
Final Curtain ◽  
Holding Back ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

These days, the old Europe is moving towards its final curtain call. The war in the Balkans is a spectre which repeats and concludes all that happened in the last century; and a ghostly farce unrolls before us. Concepts like war and peace, the rights of nations, humanity and human rights are the conceptual covers of a happening now ripening into fateful maturity. Its primary causes were a tactical holding back, a lack of knowledge of the real circumstances, secret and openly expressed prejudices, and a shabby mentality of 'not getting involved'. As a result of this, all structures are being destroyed.

General Assembly

1950 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 614-630
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Atomic Energy ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The Political ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Political Integrity ◽  
Regular Session

The fifth regular session of the General Assembly, meeting at Lake Success on September 19, 1950, had before it an agenda of 70 items. The Assembly was expected to discuss, in particular, questions concerning Palestine, the former Italian colonies, the Balkans, threats to the political integrity of China, the problem of the independence of Korea, observance of human rights, international control of atomic energy, technical assistance for under-developed areas, freedom of information, refugees and stateless persons, matters concerning trusteeship and non-self-governing territories, administrative and budgetary matters, reports of the specialized agencies, and reports of the Secretary-General on activities of the organization during the year.

The Rule of Law and Human Rights in the Balkans

2000 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 223-256
Author(s):  
L. C. Green
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The United Nations

SummaryThe author considers the application of relevant human rights provisions to the Balkans both historically and in terms of contemporary issues. In particular, he discusses the legality of the measures taken under the auspices of NATO in respect of Kosovo and queries whether such measures are able to remedy such a breakdown of civil administration and respect for human rights. In the author's view, in such circumstances, administration of a country by the United Nations itself provides the only viable alternative.

Botching the Balkans: Germany's Recognition of Slovenia and Croatia

1998 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Cavanagh Hodge
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
European History ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Armed Violence

On December 23, 1991, the Federal Republic of Germany announced its intention to proceed with unilateral diplomatic recognition of the secessionist Yugoslav states of Croatia and Slovenia, unquestionably one of the most precipitous acts in post-Cold War Europe. With it the Bonn government in effect renounced the legitimacy of the existing Yugoslav state and pressured other European governments to do the same. Within weeks the Yugoslav federation came apart at every seam, while its civil affairs degenerated into an anarchy of armed violence as convoluted in many respects as the Thirty Years' War.In Germany's defense, it should be conceded at the outset that an alternative approach to recognition would not necessarily have produced a fundamentally more peaceful transformation of Yugoslavia. In light of the deepening political and economic cleavages with which the multinational state had been wrestling since the 1970s, the reasonable question is not whether the serial wars of the Yugoslav succession could have been avoided altogether, but whether Germany's action offered Yugoslavia and its populace the best chance for a more peaceful course of change given the circumstances. Did Bonn apply the best of its diplomatic and political brains to the issues of sovereignty, self-determination, and human rights? Were its actions morally responsible with regard to Balkan, German, and European history?

Appointment With Destiny

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-120
Author(s):  
Mihajlo Mihajlov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Independent Path ◽  
Political Persuasion

Apart from Mukovan Djilas, Mihajlo Mihajlov is considered as the most famous dissident in the Balkans--a former prisoner-of-conscience in Tito's Yugoslavia. This brief but comprehensive, autobiographical retrospective recounts some major hilights in Mihajlov's odyssey ushered in by his intellectual travelogue, Moscow Sunmer 1964, first published in full in The New Leader. Mihajlov became an embarrassment not only to Josip Broz Tito and the Soviet leaders, but also to those in die West who landed Tito's "independent path to socialism." Yet others correctly perceived Mihajlov's quest for freedom of thought, speech, press, association, religious, philosophical and political persuasion as a classic benchmark of basic human rights and freedoms characterizing open, pluralistic, democratic polities. Indeed, the Westem press contributed to the pressure of world public opinion, which helped free Mihajlov, and, as he claims, even kept him alive. In a region divided by inter-ethnic conflict and civil war, Mihajlov's struggle for the rule of law and human dignity epitomizes hopes for a better future.

Stories States Tell: Identity, Narrative, and Human Rights in the Balkans

Slavic Review ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Subotić
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International System ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Discourse Practices ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Jelena Subotić explores how the states of the Balkans construct their “autobiographies“—stories about themselves—and how these stories influence their contemporary political choices. By understanding where states’ narratives about themselves—stories of their past, their historical purpose, their role in the international system—come from, we can more fully explain contemporary state behavior that to outsiders may seem irrational, self-defeating, or simply, inexplicable. Subotić specifically addresses ways in which states of the western Balkans have built their state narratives around the issue of human rights. She explores, first, how a particular narrative of state and national identity produced—or made locally comprehensible—massive human rights abuses. She then analyzes why contemporary identity narratives make postconflict human rights policies very difficult to institutionalize. The article focuses specifically on the human rights discourse, practices, and debates in Serbia and Croatia.

The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices. By Elazar Barkan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. 456p. $18.95.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 876-877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waldemar Hanasz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Human Rights Organizations ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Killing Fields ◽  
Past Injustices

It seems timely and appropriate that the twentieth century—the century of the Holocaust, the Gulag Archipelago, the Killing Fields, the Cultural Revolution, and the “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans and Rwanda—ended with a wave of growing interest in healing past injustices. Human rights organizations and international commissions investigate violations of human rights. International tribunals judge political leaders, warlords, and their soldiers. Historians, political scientists, and legal theorists study the implications of such crimes and punishments.

Postcolonialism: A Valid Paradigm for the Former Sovietized States and Yugoslavia?

2004 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry F. Carey ◽  
Rafal Raciborski
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Communist State ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
Colonial Experience ◽  
Former Ussr ◽  
Former Soviet Republics

This article argues that the structuralist effects on the large variation in the diverse human rights and democratization records of post-communist states can be best explained through the optic of postcolonialism. This approach would not override recent effects of strategic actors, though the type of postcolonialism in a post-communist state greatly constrains their actions. Among the postcolonial constraints are unsolved colonial-era problems, the type of colonial mentorship and institutions, the process of decolonization and the immediate regime path created in extricating from communism, the ongoing metropolitan-postcolonial elite relationships, and their links to mass politics. Five postcolonial regions emerge that reflect variable colonial and postcolonial experiences. The Soviet colonial experience had the most negative, direct, and ongoing effects on the former Soviet republics. Postcolonial effects on East Central Europe and the Balkans are less than the former USSR because of overlapping colonial heritages with Western empires and the shorter Soviet influence.

From Women and Work to Climate Change Activism

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-70
Author(s):  
Lisa Dicaprio
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Public History ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
International Justice ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Sustainability Literacy

The chapter explains how the author’s political activism in the 1970s and 1980s, including the cofounding of Chicago Women in Trades, which began as a support group for women carpenters, and structural changes in the academy in the 2000s framed the three main phases of a nontraditional path to and within academia. The journey has included focused work on women, work, and social welfare during the French Revolution, human rights and international justice, and sustainability literacy and climate change activism. The 2002 Catherine Prelinger Award allowed travel to the Balkans to carry out research and produce a public history photographic exhibit on the international campaign for justice for the survivors of the genocide in Srebrenica.

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