ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the historical background of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, human rights violations as both causes and consequences of conflict, the international humanitarian law and international human rights law applicable to the abuses committed, and prospects for accountability. The conflicts in the former Yugoslavia have been complex and have occurred both within states and between states since the end of the Cold War, after which many nation-states within the former Soviet Union and across Eastern Europe began to fragment. The conflict in Kosovo involved efforts by Serbia to consolidate control over Serbs in the territory of the former Yugoslavia where they were in the minority. The siege of Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Serb and Bosnian Serb forces, was at the time classed as the longest siege in modern conflict, lasting from April 1992 until February 1996, and outlasting the signature of the Dayton Accords.
