City Research Online

Abstract

This chapter analyses how Prosecutor v. Erdemović legal case at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Kitty Felde’s play A Patch of Earth mediate and remediate memory about the Srebrenica genocide. In July 1995, Bosnian Serb army killed over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Erdemović case and Felde’s play narrate the life and crime of Dražen Erdemović who participated in killing the Bosniaks. This chapter asks who should be held accountable for the genocide and how. It traces connections between law, literature and memory studies and builds on two established methods of “law as literature” and “law in literature”, interweaving them. The analysis thus offers an example of question-driven movement across disciplinary boundaries which may further enrich memory studies research on different narratives from various institutions and societal sectors. After discussing discourses that participate in constructing the collective memory of the Srebrenica genocide, this chapter focuses on duress and the impact of mitigating circumstances and remorse on just punishment. The Erdemović case and Felde’s play together foreground ambiguity and moral complexity of justice, demonstrating that justice cannot offer a neat closure to the Srebrenica genocide.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DR Balkan Peninsula J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > International Politics
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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