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Pogodak!
This report is the result of systematic monitoring of initiatives in the field of transitional justice in the countries which came into existence following the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. The monitoring has been carried out by human rights organisations, the Humanitarian Law Center (Belgrade) and Documenta (Zagreb). The disintegration of the Yugoslav federation was marked by three high-intensity armed conflicts – in Croatia (1991-95), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-95) and Kosovo (1998-99), where at least 130,000 people lost their lives, millions were forced to flee their homes, while hundreds of thousands of houses were destroyed.... >>
HLC-Kosovo is the only nongovernmental organization monitoring trials of war crimes and ethnically motivated criminal offences in Kosovo. In 2007, HLC-Kosovo monitored 117 main hearings in 21 cases before municipal and district courts, as well as four cases before the Supreme Court of Kosovo. The persons examined in these [monitored] cases included 119 witnesses (two of whom were protected witnesses) and five ballistic experts and neuropsychiatrists. In all cases the indictments were brought and represented by international prosecutors. All the chamber presidents are international judges, with local judges serving as trial chamber members.... >>
In the period following the toppling of Slobodan Milošević, the transitional government supported domestic war crimes trials, but it soon became clear that serious impediments existed. Police was not willing to share its data on war crimes perpetrators with prosecutors, primarily because most of them belonged to the police.... >>
Every government assumes political responsibility for the deeds and misdeeds of its
predecessor, and every nation for the deeds and misdeeds of the past.
Hannah Arendt, ''Eichmann in Jerusalem''
Outreach
 
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HLC is combating war crimes denial among a public reluctant to face the truth about the past and advocates the need to face the legacy of grave and systematic human rights abuses in the times of armed conflict. The organisation enables historians, researchers, victims’ families, the broader public and future generations to access information that is based on relevant and reliable documents.

As part of its efforts towards the establishment of transitional justice, HLC keeps the public, Serbian institutions and interstate organizations informed through statements, reports, conferences, bulletins, Forum for Transitional Justice, news conferences, web pages and publications.

In 2007, HLC published 67 statements, 11 transitional justice bulletins, several issues of the Forum for Transitional Justice periodical, one documentary film, one video record from an examination of witnesses, 45 volumes of transcripts from the ICTY trial of Slobodan Milošević in the B/C/S languages, the transcript from a round table entitled Genocide Judgement of the International Court of Justice and five reports on the state of minority rights in Kosovo.

HLC organizes public discussions on matters of transitional justice in the form of conferences, round tables, seminars, consultations, public victim hearings and judicial truth promotion. HLC makes video recordings of each event available on its website. In 2007, HLC produced the documentary about the Scorpions unit.

HLC continually seeks to enhance its programme communication, public information and outreach in order to raise public awareness of its goals, achievements and vision and to encourage the public and institutions to establish justice for victims, determine the accountability of perpetrators of war crimes, and prevent the manipulation of the number of victims.