Law Commons^™

The Persecution Of Stones: War Crimes, Law's Autonomy And The Co-Optation Of Cultural Heritage, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In 1567, a bridge was built over a river in Bosnia-a bridge widely seen as a work of great beauty. In 1993, it was destroyed in a war. What did its destruction mean? Was it a crime-and which one? An assault on culture-and whose? Between 2004 and 2017, a trial held in The Hague sought to answer these questions. The way it did-the assumptions and categories the prosecutors and judges deployed, the choices they made-tells us something important about how law operates and how it appropriates other bodies of knowledge, whether in a now-obscure Balkan conflict or on the battlefields …

Contemplating Failure And Creating Alternatives In The Balkans: Bosnia's Peoples, Democracy And The Shape Of Self-Determination, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A decade after Dayton, Bosnia is a fictive, failed state held together by outsiders' weapons and outsiders' will. All parties recognize that Bosnia's current constitutional dispensation is dysfunctional and are calling for change, but how should the international community respond? In deciding, we should recognize that we may owe Bosnians much, but we owe Bosnia nothing.

This Article argues that traditional self-determination doctrine is unable to justify either further claims for secession from Bosnia or Bosnia's own original secession. It examines the processes used by the international community to frame the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the recognition process for Bosnia, …

The Naked Land: The Dayton Accords, Property Disputes, And Bosnia's Real Constitution, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The Dayton Accords have brought peace and stability to Bosnia. Yet the Accords were intended to do more: they were meant to create conditions for the restoration of political unity among Bosnia's factions. On these scores, Dayton has failed. Moreover, there remains a wide rift between the international community's perceptions of the local parties' obligations and those parties' own perceptions and conduct.

One of the most complicated aspects of post-conflict Bosnia is the range of disputes over real property. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, and so far Dayton has proven singularly incapable of creating any meaningful resolution. …