Moral responsibility for collective crime: Transitional justice in the former Yugoslavia

Abstract

Crucial to the process of transition in the former Yugoslavia is responding adequately to the question of responsibility for crimes committed in the name of a collectivity, writes Nenad Dimitrijevic. However, collective moral responsibility is by no means an uncontested concept: even in collective crime, it can be argued, all that can be determined is the responsibility of the perpetrators, high-ranking officers, and political authorities. Surveying theories of collective responsibility, Dimitrijevic argues that collective responsibility is less a matter of individual or collective guilt than a sense of duty towards the victims and their community.