Human and Minority Rights in violent ethnic conflict

The objective of this Workpackage is to analyse the pre-conflict phase and conflict phases of the dissolution of the multi-national communist federation of Yugoslavia with specific reference to the role of serious human rights violations as one among several factors and processes that led to the violent escalation of ethnic conflict, as well as the dynamics between these factors and processes. In addition, this work package will assess the response of the EC/EU to the escalating crisis in the early 1990s and again in relation to Kosovo in the late 1990s in order to determine the reasons for the failure to prevent violence and settle the conflicts earlier.

Expected results are a deeper understanding of communism´s ideological and institutional legacies in the understanding of human and minority rights, how the processes of ethno-mobilisation leading into violent ethnic conflict work and how this can be prevented and which perceptions EU actors applied in the CFSP and under which internal and external constraints they acted.

Reports expected from WP 2 are:

•             Human and minority rights under Yugoslav regime
•             Reports on Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo
•             Report on Macedonia
•             EU re-active crisis management
•             Synthetic report