This summer, Dr. Alma Begicevic participated in The Seventh Law and Society Global Meeting, Rage, Reckoning and Remedy. The meeting was in hybrid format and it took place in Lisbon, Portugal from 13-16 July. The Meeting, themed Rage, Reckoning and Remedy hosted nearly 1,000 sessions over the course of the week and more than 4,650 attendees representing 97 countries participated virtually and in person.

Dr. Begicevic served as the Session chair and the discussant in the panel titled The Victims, Citizenship, and Justice: Citizen Status and Access to Justice. The panelists located in Europe and Australia contemplated how law and courts understand, construct, and erase victimhood, and what are the consequences of this for victims. They presented their studies making an inquiry into the specific relationship between courts and law enforcement in regards to victims of sexual assault in Turkey (Tugce Ellialti-Kose Trent University) victims of war in Central African Republic (Adjoa Assan Western Sydney University), victims of crime in Russia (Aryna Dzmitryieva, Kirill Titaev; Dmitriy Serebrennikov) and victims of enforced disappearance in Columbia and El Salvador (Mina Rauschenbach, Alejandro Jimenez DeJusticia, Bronwen Webster University of Warwick). In addition to this, Dr. Begicevic also presented her research at the Law and Society Association’s International Research Collaborate (IRC-53) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Conflict and Transformation. This panel focused on the specific role that economic, social and cultural rights have in transformative justice processes and examined the potential that economic and social rights could have for peacebuilding and conflict transformation.  The Law and Society’s International Research Collaborate (IRC-53) met in person, but Dr. Begicevic presented her work via Zoom. She argued for use of socio-historic research method to better understand the impact of the new type of economic ordering on the emerging, post-conflict societies, and consequences of the liberal democratic shifts on victims’ rights and the notion of citizenship.  The outcome of this meeting is a proposal for an edited volume publication and future collaborative research projects.

During her field trip to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina from July-August 2022, Dr. Begicevic met with the representatives from the International War Crimes Institute, the Trial International Organization, non-governmental organization—Woman Victim of War and with the Bosnian Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees. She conducted follow up interviews to assess legislative changes and policy responses to war victims’ demands for reparation in response to harms suffered during the 1992-1995 genocide against Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The new draft law on war Reparation is expected to ensure that children who are born out of war rape can also access remedies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The field trip was a follow up to Dr. Begicevic’s existing research examining the importance of monetary reparation in the post-war emerging democracies.

Finally, as a part of The Women in International Law (WILIG) mentorship program with the American Society of International Law (ASIL), Dr. Begicevic has provided guidance to a third group of J.D students in making initial steps towards their international law career. She mentored the students from the Vanderbilt School of Law, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, St Louis School of Law and Michigan University School of Law. The American Society of International Law offers this unique opportunity designed to foster the next generation of female international lawyers. The graduation ceremony for 2022 Mentorship Pod was on July 8, via Zoom.