As proceedings in The Hague conclude, who will deliver justice for war crimes in the Balkans?

The first-instance verdict convicting four former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army of war crimes was handed down as the era of major international trials concerning the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia draws to a close. Transitional justice experts express little optimism that domestic courts will make progress in addressing the cases that remain unresolved.

The Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers found former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi guilty of war crimes committed in 1998-99 but acquitted him of crimes against humanity.

The September 16 verdict against Thaçi, a former KLA commander, and three other former senior officials, Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selimi, is not final and may be appealed.

Even if this trial concludes, that does not necessarily mean that the institution also known as the Kosovo Specialist Court will cease operating. Nevertheless, experts believe that in the coming years, the burden of handling other war crimes cases will increasingly shift to domestic justice systems.

Bekim Blakaj, director of the Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo (HLCK), considers it concerning that the states that emerged from the former Yugoslavia do not cooperate sufficiently in legal matters. According to him, this makes it more difficult to conduct trials with defendants present and hinders the delivery of justice.

Blakaj argues that when international engagement is lacking, states are less likely to prosecute suspects belonging to their majority communities or to cooperate with one another.

How has the prosecution of war crimes in Kosovo evolved?

Speaking to Radio Free Europe, Blakaj says the ethnicity of those charged and convicted changed after responsibility was transferred from the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) to domestic institutions. The latter assumed full authority after 2018.

According to him, the data show that during the period when cases were managed by international authorities, most war crimes prosecutions targeted Albanians.

Blakaj explains that the law did not allow trials in absentia at the time. Because most suspected perpetrators from the Serb community, including members of Serbian forces, were not readily accessible to the Kosovo authorities, proceedings were conducted mainly against ethnic Albanians suspected of crimes against Albanians or members of minority communities.

The relevant data include final judgments issued by courts in Kosovo.

Trials in absentia became possible in Kosovo in 2022 following an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code. The HLCK reports that by February 2025, 15 indictments in absentia had been filed against 73 members of Serbian forces.

Although he views the numerical increase in cases positively, Blakaj has doubts about the concrete impact these proceedings will have on the delivery of justice.

He believes that victims’ families may currently feel more satisfied that these proceedings are taking place. However, according to him, this may later turn into frustration when it becomes clear that most defendants may not be able to be convicted in absentia or may never end up in prison.

The figures presented include only final judgments issued by Kosovo courts.

Ethnic inequality in the prosecution of war crimes suspects, this time favoring the majority community, is also evident in Serbia.

Serbian institutions told Radio Free Europe that 270 indictments have been filed since war crimes departments were established in 2003. Of those prosecuted, 112 were convicted and 29 were acquitted.

Prosecutors’ offices and courts in Serbia said they do not compile statistics on the ethnicity of those convicted or acquitted.

However, the Humanitarian Law Center in Serbia, in a report published in 2024, assessed that the number of cases brought against Serbs for crimes against Kosovo Albanians was small compared with the scale and extent of the crimes committed against them by Serbian armed formations.

The data include all final convictions, regardless of ethnicity or where the crime was committed.

The Institute for War Crimes Committed During the War in Kosovo, established by the Kosovo government in 2023, says it has documented 12,230 war victims. The overwhelming majority were Albanians killed by Serbian forces.

According to Blakaj, the Serbian justice system has mainly convicted lower-ranking officers rather than those who bore the greatest responsibility.

When is the era of international trials for war crimes in Yugoslavia expected to end?

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers were established in 2015 after their creation was approved by the Kosovo Assembly. Although they are part of Kosovo’s judicial system, they are based in The Hague, the Netherlands, and are staffed by international judges and prosecutors.

Unlike the Specialist Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was established by the United Nations and was tasked with addressing war crimes throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

Historian Iva Vukušić of Utrecht University in the Netherlands says that some researchers and members of the legal community in The Hague regarded the appeal judgment against Ratko Mladić, the former commander of Bosnian Serb forces, as the end of an era, although several other proceedings were concluded afterward.

She notes that outside Kosovo and Serbia, proceedings before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers have received significantly less attention than trials conducted by the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Vukušić told Radio Free Europe that this lower level of interest was understandable because almost 30 years had passed. According to her, it is somewhat normal that war crimes trials today do not receive the same level of attention as they did in 2005.

Chris Bennett, spokesperson for the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague, says the institution does not comment on the existence or details of potential investigations, nor on when its mandate might end.

In his response to Radio Free Europe, Bennett explained that the mandate of the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office remains in force until the Council of the European Union notifies Kosovo’s institutions that the investigations and all resulting proceedings have been concluded.

Vukušić believes that, beyond the Kosovo Specialist Court, opportunities to secure political and financial support for establishing other special tribunals dealing with the former Yugoslavia have diminished. According to her, this reality has become even more apparent since new wars began in various parts of the world.

She also raises the question of how long the region’s legal systems will need external support, used as a kind of crutch, in order to function properly.

What results have domestic courts achieved in other Balkan countries?

The record of domestic justice systems in prosecuting war crimes is not the same across the Balkan region.

Blakaj ranks Bosnia and Herzegovina as the country that has achieved the greatest results, both in terms of the number of cases handled and the level of responsibility held by the individuals brought before the courts.

An analysis by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) shows that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s domestic courts concluded 773 cases involving 1,209 defendants from 2004 through the end of 2024. Final convictions were handed down in 499 cases.

Despite this record, Vukušić says hundreds of potential cases remain in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She warns that many of them may never reach court.

In Croatia, data obtained by Radio Free Europe show that prosecutors filed indictments against 2,185 people between 1991 and March 31, 2026. The courts, meanwhile, did not respond to questions about the number of judgments.

In Montenegro, nine indictments have been filed over the past three decades, according to Bojana Malović of Human Rights Action.

Of these cases, seven have concluded with final judgments: four ended in convictions, while three ended with the acquittal of all defendants. The remaining two proceedings are still ongoing.