Gendered Justice Gaps in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Citation:

Björkdahl, Annika, and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic. 2014. “Gendered Justice Gaps in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Human Rights Review 15 (2): 201-18.

Authors: Annika Björkdahl , Johanna Mannergren Selimovic

Abstract:

A gendered reading of the liberal peacebuilding and transitional justice project in Bosnia–Herzegovina raises critical questions concerning the quality of the peace one hopes to achieve in transitional societies. By focusing on three-gendered justice gaps—the accountability, acknowledgement, and reparations gaps—this article examines structural constraints for women to engage in shaping and implementing transitional justice, and unmasks transitional justice as a site for the long-term construction of the gendered post-conflict order. Thus, the gendered dynamics of peacebuilding and transitional justice have produced a post-conflict order characterized by gendered peace and justice gaps. Yet, we conclude that women are doing justice within the Bosnian–Herzegovina transitional justice project, and that their presence and participation is complex, multilayered, and constrained yet critical.

Keywords: Gender, gender-just peace, transitional justice, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Critical agency

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2014