Dr Lara Nettelfield

Lecturer in International Relations

Lara J. Nettelfield (A.B., University of California, Berkeley; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Columbia University)

Email: L.J.Nettelfield@exeter.ac.uk

Twitter: @LJNettelfield

Office: Amory B217

Office Hours (Spring 2012): Th 2-3pm/ Fri 11:30-12:30pm

Phone: +44 (0) 1392-726-480

Lara J. Nettelfield is a Lecturer in International Relations. She is currently completing a co-authored manuscript (with Sarah E. Wagner, UNC Greensboro) titled Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide (Cambridge University Press). Her research interests include transitional justice, human rights, forced migration, social movements, democratic transitions, and humanitarian intervention. 


Nettelfield is the author of Courting Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Hague Tribunal's Impact in a Postwar State (Cambridge University Press, 2010), which former Hague prosecutor Richard Goldstone has called “essential reading, well-balanced and realistic.” This volume argues that the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has in fact made a substantial contribution to Bosnia and Herzegovina's transition to democracy. Based on more than three years of field research and several hundred interviews, this study brings together multiple research methods, including surveys, ethnography, and archival materials, to show the court's impact on five segments of Bosnian society, emphasizing the role of the social setting in translating international law in domestic contexts. It emphasizes that much of the early rhetoric about the transformative potential of international criminal law helped foster unrealistic expectations that institutions like the ICTY could not meet, but judged by more realistic standards, international law is seen to play a modest yet important role in postwar transitions. The findings of this study have implications for the study of international courts around the world and the role law plays in contributing to social change. Courting Democracy won the 2011 Marshall Shulman Book Prize of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES).

A political scientist by training, Nettelfield received Ph.D., M.Phil. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University and an A.B. degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She also completed a Harriman Institute certificate. She has worked for international organizations such as the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, in addition to serving as an advisor for non-governmental organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Previously she has taught at Columbia University, the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals and Simon Fraser University. She has lived, worked, and researched in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Ukraine, France, Belgium, and Spain. In her spare time, she is an avid consumer of documentary films.

Publications

MONOGRAPHS

Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide. Co-authored with Sarah E. Wagner. (New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

Courting Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Hague Tribunal’s Impact in a Postwar State. (New York: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Studies in Law and Society, 2010.)


JOURNAL ARTICLES (refereed)

“From the Battlefield to the Barracks: The Interrnational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina,“ International Journal of Transitional Justice Vol. 4 No. 1 2010.

BOOK CHAPTERS

“Research and Repercussions of Death Tolls: The Case of the Bosnian Book of the Dead,” Peter Andreas and Kelly M. Greenhill, eds., Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010).

BOOK REVIEWS

Emma Gilligan. Terror in Chechnya: Russia and the Tragedy of Civilians in War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. (Human Rights Quarterly, July 2011.)

Paul Watson. Where War Lives. Toronto: McClelland and Stuart, 2007. 367 pgs. (International Journal, Spring 2008.)

ARTICLES

“Srebrenica’s Citizens: Home and Abroad,” Co-authored with Sarah Wagner. Citizenship in Southeast Europe (CITSEE) University of Edinburgh. July 2011. Available on-line at: http://www.citsee.eu/citsee-story/srebrenica’s-citizens-home-and-abroad

“DNA, Mladic and the Science of Justice in the former Yugoslavia,” Co-authored with Sarah Wagner. Opinion Editorial. The Baltimore Sun June 6, 2011.
Available on-line at: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-06-06/news/bs-ed-mladic-20110606_1_srebrenica-victims-mass-graves-forensic-science

“Mladic’s Project Thrives in Bosnia,” Co-authored with Sarah Wagner. Opinion Editorial. St. Louis Post-Dispatch June 1, 2011.
Available on-line at: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/article_7b618fb1-0027-521c-bc6e-2ea88930f1ff.html

“Fifteenth Anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide,” (A three part series, co-authored with Sarah E. Wagner) This Side of the Pond (Blog of Cambridge University Press, North America) September – November 2010.
Available on-line at: http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2010/09/the-fifteenth-anniversary-of-the-srebrenica-genocide-mars-mira-peace-march—part-one-of-a-series/.

“Justice Has Become a Normal Thing,” Co-authored with Sarah Wagner. Opinion Editorial. The Vancouver Sun July 26, 2008.
Available on-line at: http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/editorial/story.html?id=04d8ab0d-0447-4075-9999-5cf027a9a5d9&k=44188&p=2

“Documenting the Victims of Conflict,” Institute of War and Peace Reporting, Tribunal Update, No. 558, July 4, 2008.

“Interview of Dani: Patrick Ball.“ Dani Magazine (Sarajevo). July 2007. (In Bosnian.)

“Bosnia’s Muslims Still Cry Out for Justice.” Co-authored with Sarah Wagner. Opinion Editorial. The Globe and Mail. July 12, 2005.
Available on-line at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article890969.ece

“Ten Years After the Genocide: Justice’s Slow Course in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Co-authored with Sarah Wagner. Opinion Editorial. The Vancouver Sun July 11, 2005.

“For the Bosniaks, the US Ideal is in Ruins.” Co-authored with Sarah Wagner. Opinion Editorial. Los Angeles Times September 19, 2004.
Available on-line at: http://articles.latimes.com/2004/sep/19/opinion/op-wagner19