Fourth Report on the Implementation of the National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes

The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) has been monitoring and providing support to war crimes trials ever since the first war crimes proceedings conducted in Serbia in 2002. The HLC is the only organization that has been continuously monitoring and analyzing war crimes trials in Serbia and informing the public at home and abroad about them. HLC has been filing criminal complaints against suspected perpetrators and sharing its documentation on war crimes with the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutors (OWCP). Also, the HLC has been identifying witnesses and victims and encouraging them to give evidence in court and thus contribute to achieving justice for past crimes.

The National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes (hereinafter: the National Strategy) was adopted in February 2016. The HLC is the only non-governmental organisation that monitors and reports on its implementation with a view to assisting in a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the state of implementation of the measures and activities set forth in the National Strategy.

This is the fourth HLC report on the implementation of the National Strategy. It covers the period from 1 December 2018 to 1 June 2019. A comprehensive assessment of the state implementation of the National Strategy in the preceding period is provided in the Initial Report on the Implementation of the National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes, the Second Report on the Implementation of the National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes and the Third Report on the Implementation of the National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes, which were released and presented in 2017 and 2018.

As shown in the report, no progress has been made in war crimes prosecutions in the forty months since the adoption of the National Strategy. 18 of the 21 of the indictments that have been filed since the adoption of the National Strategy were not the result of the OWCP’s own investigation but transferred to the OWCP from BiH. War crimes trials continue to be unreasonably protracted, the procedural rights of victims have not been strengthened, the number of missing persons is decreasing slower than expected, and cooperation with the International Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) has been marked by the IRMCT’s decision to try Serbian Radical Party (SRS) members Vjerica Radeta and Petar Jojić, charged with contempt of court, in The Hague rather than in Serbia, after the witnesses in this case said they would be concerned for their safety if the trial was held in Serbia.

Fourth Report on the Implementation of the National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes is available here.