The Kosovar war and NATO intervention followed many years of violence in the province. The Kanuni i Leke Dugagjinit, a code predating the Magna Charta, provides a range of prescriptions for civic behavior and community life, including regulating a form of third-party conflict resolution and the so-called blood feuds¹. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Reconciliation Councils resolved blood feuds and other conflicts in the province, providing Kosovar Albanians with an alternative to courts, which whey did not perceive as neutral or fair (the model of third-party intervention used in these contexts was similar to arbitration). Though these mechanisms are valuable, inter- and intra-group violence involving Serbs and Kosovar Albanians, as well as other forms of violence, persist after the war.

This unique, immediately post-violent situation presented a new challenge for Partners. In response to the province’s needs, Partners founded Partners-Kosovo in spring 2001 and established a community-based mediation service to resolve local disputes and assist in stabilizing the province. To work within this difficult environment, Partners employed practitioners from its international network of Centers to build the capacity of Partners-Kosovo through transferring skills from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The trainers worked with Partners-Kosovo staff to assess the province’s situation vis-à-vis post-traumatic stress syndrome, human rights violations, and the community-wide impact of conflict.

A critical aspect of designing the service was the assessment of the local culture and its receptivity for mediation. Mediation empowers disputants to generate their own settlements, thereby overcoming assumptions and stereotypes, and working to build and preserve relationships. Partners found that a “modern” mediation service could in fact complement existing local tradition and institutions, and fill a much-needed gap. Partners thus assessed its role as a cooperative one in which it has taken the old Kosovar conflict resolution structures, which remain trusted and respected, and infused them with modern mediation concepts that focus on the disputants rather than the conflict resolver. In so doing, Partners has built extensive networks to share cases and information, and begun to coalesce and modernize disparate conflict resolution energies across the province.

In the year since founding, Partners-Kosovo and its network of trained mediators have helped settle 50 disputes, including neighborhood, property, family, business, employment, minor criminal cases and blood feuds. As the court system is relatively under-developed and unfamiliar to citizens, and with the strong local tradition for alternative dispute resolution structures, the need for Partners-Kosovo’s work is only growing. The following case is illustrative of the violence that has been mitigated through the service:

A minor disagreement in a bar-cafe in Mitrovica in July 2002 escalated into a physical confrontation between Parties A1 and A2 (who are friends) and Party B. B was briefly hospitalized as a result of the injuries he sustained during the brawl, and A1 and A2 were sentenced to time in jail for their role in the incident. Upon release, A1 came to Partners-Kosovo because he claimed that B and his family were threatening to kill A1, A1's family members, and A2. In total, about 60 members of the two extended families were affected by these threats. A1 had tried to reconcile with B, but had been unsuccessful. Partners-Kosovo mediators were able to convene the parties to discuss the conflict, and Party B eventually retracted his threats against both A1 and A2 and their families.

This case is typical for several reasons: (1) minor disputes often escalate to violence very quickly in Kosovo, (2) many cases involve threats against large extended families, thus impacting large numbers of people, (3) many people do not trust the state enough to allow it to be the exclusive arbiter of justice--therefore, families often still desire revenge in order to protect their honor, even if jail time was sentenced and served.

Partners is working to make the Center’s mediation service an integral part of the development of rule of law in Kosovo, by addressing issues and emotions that courts cannot handle, providing people with an alternative to a decision between the courts or vigilante justice, and creating space for the development of a respect for the official justice system over time. By infusing existing tradition with modern ideas, Partners has created a distinctly Kosovar model for mediation that is mitigating violence in the province and working to build a lasting peace.

¹ Throughout Kosovar history, ethnic Albanians have engaged in so-called “blood feuds,” which involve the extended family, possibly over generations, extracting revenge for acts of wrong-doing on the part of another clan or family. Many of the dictums of blood feud pathology are prescribed in the Kanuni i Leke Dugagjinit.

Additional Resources
1) Brochure for Mediation Service from Partners-Kosovo (Microsoft Word Document)

2) Article by Partners for Democratic Change on "Building Cooperative Peace in Response to Violence in Emerging Democracies" (Microsoft Word Document)