ENDING IMPUNITY IN KOSOVO: CLOSING THE ACCOUNTABILITY GAP FOR CRIMES COMMITTED DURING THE KOSOVO CONFLICT Testimony of Dr. Paul R. Williams Rebecca I. Grazier Professor of Law and International Relations American University President and Co-Founder, Public International Law and Policy Group House Committee on Foreign Affairs "Kosovo's Wartime Victims: The Quest for Justice" April 30, 2019
ENDING IMPUNITY IN KOSOVO: CLOSING THE ACCOUNTABILITY GAP FOR CRIMES COMMITTED DURING THE KOSOVO CONFLICT Good morning Chairman Eliot Engel, Ranking Member Michael McCaul, and members of the Committee. It is an honor to testify before you today. In particular, it is an honor to be invited here by Chairman Engel given his long-standing commitment to peace and justice in Kosovo. It is also a privilege to share this platform with the other individuals testifying before the committee, each of whom have poignant, direct, and personal experiences and insight relating to the quest for justice for Kosovo's wartime victims. I have been asked by Chairman Engel to discuss the international legal violations committed during the Kosovo War of 1999. In particular, I have been asked to speak from the perspective of an international lawyer with experience in designing accountability mechanisms. I will address the remedies which have been made available to victims and potential claimants, including families of those murdered and victims of rape and conflict-related sexual violence, whose cases derive from the Kosovo conflict. I have been asked to assess the degree to which these mechanisms have effectively served the purpose of justice, accountability and reconciliation for the people of Kosovo. Specifically, I have been asked to share my thoughts on the future role of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers as a viable mechanism to afford justice to the hundreds of thousands of victims of that conflict. This testimony will identify what I call an "accountability gap" in Kosovo, and it will seek to explain some of the reasons behind this gap. I will first detail a brief history of the conflict in Kosovo and discuss the mechanisms that have been created for accountability so far- namely, the Yugoslav Tribunal, the UN Mission in Kosovo's Regulation 64 Panels, the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo's assistance to domestic courts, the Serbian War Crimes Chamber, and the more recent Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor's Office. I will then assess how and why access to justice, with particular attention to conflict-related sexual violence, has to date been beyond the reach of a significant number of victims in Kosovo. Lastly, I will articulate a number of steps we can take to begin closing this accountability gap. To contextualize my contribution to today's hearing, I should mention my previous work on accountability in the former Yugoslavia as well as in other post-conflict regions, including Syria, Uganda, Côte d'Ivoire, and Libya. I was an Attorney Advisor in the U.S. Department of State's Office of European and Canadian Affairs during the State Department's initial development of an American response to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. In this