Member of the European Parliament Željana Zovko participated on Saturday, 5 May in the Second Congress of ELSA (European Association of Law Students) “Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia“, held in the Hotel “Park” in Split.
Many jurists, legal experts and university professors of international criminal law gathered at the 2nd ELSA Congress to present their views on the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.
Zovko participated in the panel titled “Has the International Criminal Tribunal contributed to reconciliation in former Yugoslavia?“. In her speech she talked about the most recent verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal and the so-called joint criminal enterprise in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which turned the rhetoric of individual accountability and conviction of individuals, which actually were the first and uttermost task of the International Criminal Tribunal, into rhetoric of collective accountability and conviction of an entire nation.
She pointed out that this shift in rhetoric from individual to collective accountability was indeed the main source of instability in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Zovko concluded her speech by saying that the main goal of the rhetoric of collective accountability was to demonise the Croats as a constitutive nation and to use it as an excuse for rejecting constitutional, institutional and economic reforms and other legitimate requests of the BiH Croats.