Dr Aidan Hehir is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Westminster. He gained his PhD from the University of Limerick in 2005 and previously worked at the University of Sheffield. His research interests include transitional justice, humanitarian intervention, and statebuilding in Kosovo. He is the author-editor of twelve academic books, the most recent being Kosovo and the Internationals: Hope, Hubris and the End of History (2024), Palgrave Macmillan.

His book – Hollow Norms and The Responsibility to Protect – won the 2019 British International Studies Association ‘Working Group on Intervention and R2P’ book prize.

He has published over fifty academic book chapters and journal articles; his work has been published in International Security, The Journal of Peace Research, The European Journal of International Relations, Ethics and International Affairs, and Cooperation and Conflict. He is co-editor of the Routledge Studies in Intervention and Statebuilding book series and is a regular contributor to national and international television and radio.

In 2022 he published the novel The Flowers of Srebrenica about a journey to the memorial centre at Srebrenica, Bosnia. The novel was adapted into a play which had its premiere in Sarajevo in July 2025 to mark the 30^th Anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. The play has since been staged in Serbia and will tour the UK, Norway and Italy in October and November. 

Click the ‘Listen’ button below to hear Dominic Bowen with Aidan Hehir unpack how the memory of Srebrenica and the denial shape Western Balkans politics today. Click ‘Read’ for a more in-depth analysis of the subject, weighing the competing narratives around the genocide between the Serb government and Bosnia, the ineffective R2P (Responsibility to Protect) response of the UN, and the risks of resurgence of civil disturbances related to the 1990s conflicts.