European Studies, Vol. 2 No. 3-4, 2016.
Review article
EU PRE-ACCESSION POLITICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR WESTERN BALKANS: Unravelling the Application and Compliance Record of the ICTY Conditionality
Davor Petrić
orcid.org/0000-0001-7737-2150
Abstract
The European Union’s association offer to Western Balkans included, among
other pre-accession political requirements, full cooperation with the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. This requirement was envisaged
as one of the crucial elements of the EU conditionality mechanism towards
Western Balkans, and has heavily dominated the EU’s external relations agenda
with the Western Balkans states. This essay analyses structural preconditions
in selected countries of the Western Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia
and Serbia), and assesses impact of the ICTY conditionality on the dynamics of
pre-accession Europeanization of the three states. With basis in both rationalist
and sociological/constructivist meta-theories, discussion tracks down essential
international and domestic factors, which if favourable facilitated the EU’s policy
of ICTY conditionality. Primary aim of the essay is to arrive to a descriptive
and causal conclusions and get better understanding why both the application
of, and compliance with, the ICTY conditionality was in the end rather troublesome and inconsistent process. Main argument is that in the case of each
country observed, serious impediments undermining the ICTY conditionality’s
effectiveness can be encountered within the every factor assessed, which can
be used to explain disruptive application and compliance record of the ICTY
conditionality.
Keywords
European Union; Western Balkans; pre-accession political conditionality; ICTY; international and domestic facilitating factors
Hrčak ID:
171286
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2016.
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