In Slovenia, Northeastern students present research on international criminal tribunal

Last week, at an inter­na­tional con­fer­ence in Slovenia, a group of North­eastern stu­dents pre­sented their research exam­ining a crim­inal tri­bunal estab­lished to handle war crimes stem­ming from the con­flicts in the Balkans in the early 1990s.

The stu­dents’ global learning expe­ri­ences inspired the research project, which is nearly two years in the making.

In the summer of 2014, three of the stu­dents— Evan Bruning, SSH’17, and Mara Scallon, S’16, and Jane Rudy, SSH’16—met on a Dia­logue of Civ­i­liza­tions pro­gram in Bosnia and Herze­govina and Serbia, where they studied the con­flict and post-​​conflict recon­struc­tion in the former Yugoslavia. Bruning said that on the Dia­logue, they spoke with observers of the con­flicts from var­ious sides and were intrigued to learn more.

“We talked to people about how they were impacted by war and their national con­scious,” Bruning said. “It was really fas­ci­nating, and we wanted to do more research.”

The stu­dents began inves­ti­gating the topic fur­ther, specif­i­cally focusing on accu­sa­tions that the Inter­na­tional Crim­inal Tri­bunal for the former Yugoslavia is inher­ently biased against Serbs, who com­prise the majority of those con­victed. They were soon joined by another stu­dent, Jeremia Whall, SSH’16, who him­self worked on co-​​op at the Centre for Applied Non­vi­o­lent Action and Strate­gies in Bel­grade, Serbia.

They received a Provost’s Under­grad­uate Research and Cre­ative Endeavors Award, which sup­ported their May 2015 visit to The Hague, Nether­lands, where the tri­bunal is located and where they did the bulk of their research. The stu­dents spent two-​​and-​​a-​​half weeks there, con­ducting a series of inter­views with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from embassies and non-​​governmental orga­ni­za­tions. The visit also included research at the Peace Palace Library, one of the world’s oldest libraries spe­cial­izing in inter­na­tional law.

“The inter­views were really favor­able,” Scallon said. “They were excited to help with our research, and [we gained] a lot of cred­i­bility from having done the Dia­logue.” The stu­dents recalled that one par­tic­u­larly enthu­si­astic rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Croa­tian embassy met them car­rying six binders full of papers and spoke with them for nearly two hours.

Working on the research project also moti­vated Bruning to pursue a co-​​op at the Office of the High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Sara­jevo, Bosnia and Herze­govina. He worked there from July through December 2015. Bruning worked for the head of the office’s polit­ical and eco­nomic area, which focuses on pro­moting polit­ical rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, sus­tain­able eco­nomic devel­op­ment, and on inte­grating Bosnia and Herze­govina into the inter­na­tional community.

This spring, the stu­dents show­cased their research at RISE:2016 and at the 2nd Annual CSSH Under­grad­uate Research Forum. Then on June 24, Bruning, Scallon, and Rudy pre­sented at the CEEISA-​​ISA 2016 Joint Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence in Slovenia’s cap­ital city of Ljubl­jana. They joined pro­fes­sors from Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity and Tulane Uni­ver­sity and a researcher at The Hague Insti­tute For Global Jus­tice as part of a panel on inter­na­tional courts and tribunals.

“We were very proud to be per­haps the only under­grad­uate stu­dents pre­senting research [at the con­fer­ence],” Scallon said, noting that atten­dees were impressed with the quality of their research, writing, and presentation.

Ulti­mately, the stu­dents found that the tri­bunal doesn’t suffer from inherent bias, but that there are sev­eral prob­lems that under­mine its effec­tive­ness and impar­tiality. They said insti­tu­tional weak­nesses and a lack of account­ability within and out­side the tri­bunal have allowed the biases of indi­vidual actors to influ­ence the out­come of pro­ceed­ings. Claims of bias have also been quickly dis­missed, which has bred resent­ment and demon­strated the failure of the global com­mu­nity to view the Balkan con­flict in a nuanced manner, they said.

“By neglecting to address the need for impar­tiality and account­ability within each step of the legal process, the archi­tects of the ICTY and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity alike failed to pro­duce a uni­ver­sally impar­tial insti­tu­tion,” the stu­dents wrote in an article about their research for NU Polit­ical Review. “The struc­tural and pro­ce­dural weak­nesses of the Tri­bunal exac­er­bate issues inherent in inter­na­tional jus­tice, chal­lenge rec­on­cil­i­a­tion efforts in the Western Balkans, and allow the pre­dom­i­nant nar­ra­tive of the Bosnian war to creep into court proceedings.”

The stu­dents received funding from the Inter­na­tional Affairs Under­grad­uate Research Fund and the Col­lege of Social Sci­ences and Human­i­ties Under­grad­uate Research Ini­tia­tive to attend the conference.