2026 Theses Master's

From Silence to Accountability: How a Counter‑Hegemonic Breakthrough Enabled Kosovo's Recent Momentum Against CRSV Impunity

Gjonaj, Alexa

In the decades following the 1998-1999 Kosovo War, the world disregarded the thousands of women and men who tragically endured Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. Within this widespread silence, both international and domestic norm-enforcing mechanisms converged to enmesh survivors in a cyclical void of justice. It is through the symbiotic relationship between Kosovar socio-cultural stigma and institutional legal action that avoiding accountability for CRSV perpetrators became a self-reinforcing impunity. Recent years have witnessed increased momentum in CRSV justice and accountability for Kosovo– a deeply perplexing situation when considering its tension against a prolonged silence rooted in social, legal, and cultural contexts alike.

The nature of examining what may have prompted such unprecedented momentum is twofold: first, assessing why CRSV justice stalled amid international interventions and democratic state-building; and second, examining the causes of the 2018 to current rise in CRSV prosecutions and attention. In framing stagnation as a post-war reversion to the cultural tradition, the customary Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini, post-war momentum exceeds the mere attribution to legal and procedural capacities. The analysis involves qualitative document analysis. In qualitative document analysis, Conflict-Related Sexual Violence is not the result of a single, independent event, but the result of a counter-hegemonic norm shift fostered by urbanization.