More than two decades after the Kosovo war, accountability for crimes committed against Kosovo Albanians remains far from complete. And according to the Humanitarian Law Center in Serbia, the number of prosecutions against members of Serbian forces does not correspond to the scale and extent of the crimes committed in Kosovo.
The assessment comes at a time when major international war-crimes trials related to the wars in the former Yugoslavia are gradually coming to an end, placing greater responsibility on domestic courts to investigate and prosecute cases that remain unresolved.
On September 16, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague convicted former Kosovo President and former KLA commander Hashim Thaçi, as well as former KLA leaders Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selimi, of “war crimes”. The Trial Panel acquitted them of crimes against humanity. The verdicts are not final and may be appealed.
But while international attention has focused heavily on the proceedings against former KLA leaders, the question of accountability for crimes committed by Serbian forces in Kosovo remains unresolved.
Bekim Blakaj, director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Kosovo, has pointed to the continuing lack of judicial cooperation between the countries of the former Yugoslavia. He said this makes it difficult to prosecute suspects who are outside Kosovo and prevents many cases from being conducted in the presence of the accused.
Since amendments to Kosovo’s Criminal Procedure Code in 2022, courts in Kosovo have been able to conduct trials in absentia. According to the Humanitarian Law Center, by February 2025, indictments in absentia had been filed against 73 members of Serbian forces in 15 cases.
Serbia itself has faced criticism over the number and scope of prosecutions concerning crimes committed against Kosovo Albanians.
According to figures from Serbian authorities reported by Radio Free Europe, since the establishment of Serbia’s War Crimes Department in 2003, 270 indictments have been filed. Convictions were issued in 112 cases, while 29 defendants were acquitted.
Yet the Humanitarian Law Center in Serbia concluded in a 2024 report that the number of cases against members of Serbian forces for crimes against Kosovo Albanians does not correspond to the scale and gravity of the crimes committed.
That assessment is particularly significant given the documented human cost of the Kosovo war. Kosovo’s Institute for War Crimes has documented 12,230 victims of the war, the overwhelming majority of them Albanians killed by Serbian forces.
The issue therefore extends beyond individual court cases. It concerns whether the judicial systems of the region have done enough to establish responsibility for the crimes committed during the wars of the 1990s.
As international proceedings gradually come to an end, that responsibility increasingly falls on domestic institutions. For Kosovo, this means continuing to pursue cases involving alleged perpetrators who remain outside the reach of its justice system. For Serbia, it means confronting allegations concerning its own forces and ensuring that the scale of prosecutions reflects the scale of the crimes documented.
The passage of time does not erase the crimes, nor does it eliminate the responsibility to investigate them.
For the families of Kosovo’s victims, justice remains unfinished.
