After the Ratko Mladic Judgment – Using the potential of the ICTY convictions for reconciliation in the region
On 22 November 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague pronounced the first-instance judgment against Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS), sentencing him to life imprisonment. The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) considers that the facts established, the findings of responsibility and the evidence presented encompass the judicial truth about the genocide in Srebrenica and other crimes committed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The findings of the judgment and the extensive documentation collected during the proceedings now represent valuable potential for a final and decisive step toward reconciliation and dealing with the past.
The main trial before the War Crimes Department of the High Court in Belgrade in the Trnje case, which was scheduled for September 13 2017, was not held because the defendant Pavle Gavrilović did not appear before the Court, again, because he allegedly fell ill on the day of the trial. His absence was, as in previous occurrences, justified on the basis of medical records issued by the Military Hospital in Niš. The second defendant, Rajko Kozlina, used to use a similar tactics of absence from the trial, with the only difference that he received confirmation of hospitalization from the Belgrade Military Medical Academy. Both defendants are still 
More than a year after the adoption of the 
The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Serge Brammertz, in his regular six-month address to the UN Security Council on 7 June 2017, presented a report in which he warned of a growing trend of denial and revisionism of court- established facts in Serbia and the entire region, as well as of the burning issue of the slowdown in the process of war crimes trials before Serbian courts, and the difficulties of regional cooperation between specialized prosecution offices. At the same session of the UN Security Council, the Serbian representative Čedomir Backović rejected any words of criticism and opposed Brammertz’s substantive objections by presenting the supposed statistical successes of the Serbian government that he represents. The signatories to this appeal demand that the Serbian authorities consider carefully the objections addressed to Serbia during the UN Security Council session, and deal with problems that have in recent years resulted in the growth of nationalism in society and a drastic deterioration in relations with the countries of the region.