Bringing “Justice” Home? Bosnians, War Criminals and the Interaction between the Cosmopolitan and the Local

Abstract

One day before the historic trial against Radovan Karadžić was due to begin, Biljana Plavšić, a former Bosnian Serb leader, was released from prison after serving two-thirds of an 11-year sentence for war crimes. She flew in from Sweden to Belgrade, where she was welcomed by the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska. While Plavšić was on her way home, more than a hundred representatives of Bosnian nongovernmental organizations were heading from home to the Hague, to be present for the beginning of the Karadžić trial. Drawing on cases of returning war criminals, this article argues that similar to Bosnian citizens and war criminals who are commuting in different directions, cosmopolitan and local forms of justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina are also progressing in opposite destinations.