Source: Washington
Drawing on its extensive, high-level discussions throughout the region, the Commission investigates the causes of the recent Balkan conflicts and provides an independent assessment of the European, American, and UN responses. It calls for a wide range of stabilizing measures—including proposals for the treatment of minorities, the promotion of democracy, and Balkan cooperation.
The Commission, established in 1995 by the Aspen Institute Berlin and the Carnegie Endowment, included Leo Tindemans (chairman), Lloyd Cutler, Bronislaw Geremek, John Roper, Theo Sommer, Simone Veil, and David Anderson (ex officio). Jacques Rupnik headed the Commission staff.
Advance Praise
"Committee reports generally represent lowest common demoninator thinking... [This] report ... stands this charge on its head with its unbiased, critical observations, level-headed analysis, and practical recommendations."
—Current History
"...a superlative document—an incisive analysis of the rise of nationalism and its contribution to the death of Yugoslavia and to the wars that followed, an unflattering account of the West's failure to end the Bosnian war, a set of sensible recommendations for each country in the region, and imaginative proposals for the Balkans as a whole. Unfinished Peace, remarkably well written for a product of group-think, has a moral force which lifts its prescriptions far above the level of the normal policy institute paperback... Unfinished Peace deserves to be read not just by Balkan experts, but by anyone concerned about the human condition and the human character under stress."
—The New York Review of Books