The Role of the European Union in Promoting Transitional Justice in the Western Balkans: Past Lessons and Future Challenges
The Role of the European Union in Promoting Transitional Justice in the Western Balkans: Past Lessons and Future Challenges

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to look into the role of the European Union (EU) in promoting transitional justice in the Western Balkans. It seeks to answer the questions of how the EU affected transitional justice processes in the region, what were the outcomes of the EU’s engagement, and what are the opportunities and challenges for the future endeavours of the EU. The author argues that the EU has played an important role since states adopted transitional justice mechanisms not only to meet demands from the EU, but sometimes they also introduced them without being directly pressured in order to show the EU authorities that they respect European values and norms. However, most of the mechanisms lacked a genuine will to reconcile with the past. The EU should, therefore, pay greater attention to the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms in order to prevent eventual abuses that maintain existent ethno-nationalist narratives. Also, it should focus more on the elements of restorative justice, among which the regional truth commission seems to be particularly significant for transitional justice in this war-torn region.

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