UN Court Archives Reveal the Political Economy of the Balkan Wars

Tudjman's statement was a response to international pressure to amend a law that restricted the return of property to Serbs who had been expelled or fled the country after the Croatian military's Operation Storm in August that year.

Research in the archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, reveals many more examples of how economic violence - actions that cause economic harm - was committed on a widespread basis during the 1990s conflicts in many different locations, and how it financed and sustained armed groups, thus ensuring that the conflicts could continue.

These insights call for a re-evaluation of the conflicts, as most cases at the ICTY and in domestic courts in the countries of the former Yugoslavia have focused on violations of civic and political rights, and only in some instances have addressed violations of economic rights.

As a consequence of this prosecutorial approach, the underlying war criminal networks that supported the war - war profiteers, organised crime gangs, illegal smugglers of gasoline, people, weapons and so on - remained invisible, even though their connections to political parties and elites that emerged during and after the conflict are well-known facts.

Civilians prevented from reclaiming homes Croatian wartime leader Franjo Tudjman at the railway station in Vukovar in June 1997. Photo: EPA/ANTONIO BAT.

After Operation Storm, Croatia gave Serbs who lived in the country 90 days to make a property return claim, while at the same time imposing visa obstacles to ensure that they could not return and claim what was rightfully theirs.

"I wouldn't give [them] anything. You have to give instructions to the customs that they shouldn't let...