Identification and analysis of human remains recovered from wells from the 1991 War in Croatia

From 1996 to the present, the remains of 61 individuals killed during the 1991 War in Croatia were recovered from both dried out and functioning wells. Positive identification was established in 60.7% or 37/61 cases. Remains recovered from the same geographical region but from non-well settings were identified in 77.4% or 1256/1623 cases. The purpose of this paper is to report on the taphonomic, demographic and trauma characteristics of remains recovered from wells and identify factors responsible for the discrepancy in the identification ratios. The age and sex distributions in the well and non-well series were similar, as were the frequencies of recovered personal documents, jewelry and other artifacts. The taphonomic features of the remains were, however, significantly different. Preservation of remains was considerably better in non-well settings (1400/1623 or 86.3% compared to 40/61 or 65.5% in wells). Congruently, commingling of remains was more frequent in wells (26/61 or 42.6% compared to 77/1623 or 4.7% in non-well settings). In bodies recovered from non-well settings the preservation, state and commingling of the remains were strongly correlated with positive identification. None of these features were correlated with the identification of bodies from wells. Instead, identification of remains from wells was significantly affected by the presence or absence of water in the well. As both series have similar frequencies, and identical rankings of identification factors, the reason for the discrepancy in the identification ratios lies in the fact that by themselves, these factors were rarely sufficient for positive identification. In both series the majority of identifications (51.4% in the well, and 58.1% in the non-well series) were established through a combination of biological and non-biological features. The significantly lower identification ratio in the well series resulted from the difficult recovery conditions in wells with significant amounts of water, and the negative effect that water had on the preservation of clothing, personal artifacts and some dental features. Significant differences were also noted in the types and locations of perimortem traumas. There is a significantly higher frequency of entrance gunshot wounds to the back of the head, suggestive of execution style murders, in the well series.     

Croatia’s computer laws: promotion of growth in E-commerce via greater cyber-security

Croatia’s Electronic Signature Act (“ESA”) was enacted in 2002. The ESA is third-generation and provides for legal recognition of all types of E-signatures, but gives preferred status to the digital signature. The ESA provides for regulation of Certification Authorities (“CA”), who may voluntarily elect to become accredited if they are able to comply with stringent financial and technical requirements. The principal duties of CA’s are to: issue certificates to successful applicants; confirm the authenticity and integrity of E-signatures to relying third parties; maintain a repository of certificates which may be accessed by the public; and cancel a certificate if any information contained therein is discovered to be inaccurate. The ESA covers legal liability of CA’s and punitive measures which may be taken against them if they violate the ESA. The Electronic Document Act (“EDA”) was enacted in 2005. The EDA specifies how an E-document can be used to comply with a statutory requirement for production of a paper document or an original document. The EDA also creates a legal presumption of admissibility of evidence in electronic form, and contains rules pertinent to assumed time/place of transmission/receipt of an E-message. The EDA covers liability of Internet service providers and specifies several computer crimes. The Electronic Commerce Act (“ECA”) was enacted in 2003. The ECA provides for basic E-contract rules, basic regulation of E-commerce sellers, and basic consumer protections of E-commerce buyers. Although it was a satisfactory first-step, the ECA needs to be fine-tuned with the following modifications: (1) add E-contract attribution rules; (2) improve the E-contract acknowledgement-of-receipt rules; (3) add E-contract rules for carriage contracts; (4) strengthen the consumer protections of E-commerce buyers; (5) establish information technology courts for resolution of E-commerce disputes; (6) add cybersuite provisions; and (7) add explicit long-arm jurisdiction over foreign E-commerce sellers.

Ready for the homeland? Ritual,remembrance, and political extremism in Croatian football

In the case of Croatia, sport has proved to be a highly politicized form of national expression, functioning as a salient social field in which its “national habitus codes” are most intensively articulated, debated, and contested. An incident emblematizing this argument occurred on 19 November 2013, when the Croatian national football team secured their qualification for the 2014 Football World Cup in Brazil. In front of the 25,000 people at Zagreb's Maksimir stadium, the national team player, Josip ?imuni?, grabbed the microphone and “greeted” all four stands with a loud chanting of Za dom (For the home(land)), to which the stands thunderously responded spremni (ready), the official salute of the Independent State of Croatia, a fascist WWII quisling-state. This paper argues that the issue extends beyond politically radicalized football hooligans and has to be understood from the standpoint of “social memory.” By focusing on football, the article scrutinizes debates in the Croatian public sphere dealing with the salute Za dom – spremni. Providing an insight into its complex and multi-layered nature, this paper illustrates that Croatian football has to be understood as a field in which social memory is prominently constructed, heatedly articulated, and powerfully disseminated.     

Does the police code of silence vary with police assignment? An empirical exploration of the relation between the code and assignment

ABSTRACT

This paper contains an in-depth exploration of the relation between police code of silence and police assignment. A police integrity survey was used to measure the contours of the code among Croatian patrol officers, detectives, and community-policing officers. Samples of police officers evaluated fourteen hypothetical scenarios describing various forms of police misconduct. Whereas the type of assignment was a weak predictor of the respondents’ adherence to the code of silence, the respondents’ assessments of misconduct seriousness and expected discipline, as well as perceptions whether other officers would report misconduct, were strong predictors of the respondents’ own expressed adherence to the code.     

Researching norms,narratives, and transitional justice: focus group methodology in post-conflict Croatia

This article is based on the assumption that norms can help better understand one of the expressivist aims of transitional justice, that of building a new narrative about the past. The main argument is that focus groups, as an interactive method of inquiry, are well suited to investigating how this “judicial” narrative interacts with the official and dominant war narrative in Croatia. Focus groups are more adept at this than other methodological approaches since they can effectively reflect independence of opinion; they lead to more truthful answers through spontaneity; they effectively probe taken-for-granted concepts; and they can more easily overcome distrust in post-conflict societies, especially with ex-combatants. The approach faces new challenges in such a situation since recruitment problems, insider/outsider status, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other ethical concerns, present problems that often arise due to the group process. The powerful and unpredictable effect of the group dynamic can, therefore, provide a deep exploration of social norms, but it can also cause significant upset among participants. In this instance the methodology explores how widely accepted the war narrative is, how it is constructed, and how important the public believes it is not to question it.     

Internet as a source of information for tourists The case of Croatia

This paper presents the results of empirical research conducted during the summer 2007 on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia about how much tourists used the Internet as a source of information. Precisely, because tourism is an important part of Croatian economy, it is in everyone＇s interest for information about Croatia as a tourist destination to be available to potential guests. A variety of media are used in achieving that aim--starting with conventional speech and conversation amongst friends, through radio, television and the press, and now the Internet. This paper has the aim of exploring the share of Internet usage as a source of information compared to other media and showing some characteristics of tourists who have used the Internet as the main source of information and spent their vacations in Croatia in July and August in 2007. The main hypothesis is the continuing problem of the generation and education gap and that the Internet does not jeopardize direct communication.     

Structural weaknesses and the role of the dominant political party: democratic backsliding in Croatia since EU accession

ABSTRACT

Croatia is regarded as a success story of the EU’s enlargement policy. However, this narrative conflicts with the situation on the ground and with expert surveys, which depict incremental, yet persistent democratic backsliding in recent years. A shift towards illiberal practices, primarily focused on the liberal part of the liberal-democratic nexus, is taking place. This research aims to explore the prevalence and causes for the re-emergence of illiberal practices in Croatia by employing an interpretive method to evidence gathered from media articles and research reports published 2013–2019. The use of illiberal policies by the governing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in three areas of the political system – the capture of independent agencies, control of the judiciary, and the weakening of independent media – is found to be the driver of democratic backsliding. Causes are found in structural reasons linked to the dominant party. Without either internal power-sharing constraints or external EU conditionality pressure, the HDZ has been able to take advantage of structural weaknesses of the system it built and shaped during the 1990s.