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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''
About Us
 
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The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) helps post-Yugoslav societies re-establish the rule of law and come to terms with the legacy of large-scale past human rights abuses, in order to prevent their recurrence, to ensure accountability, and to serve justice.

 

HLC was founded in 1992 by human rights defender Natasa Kandic to document human rights violations committed during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, and to provide legal aid and protection to victims of past human rights abuses before national courts.

40 dedicated professionals, with expertise in human rights and transitional justice, work for HLC. The organisation has offices located in Belgrade, Serbia, and Pristina, Kosovo.

Recent Achievements

2008: In April 2008, the Belgrade War Crime Chamber began the trial of 14 indictees for their alleged role in the killing of 70 Croatian civilians in 1991 in Lovas, Croatia. The Lovas Case is the first trial in which Yugoslav National Army officers have been indicted. The trial is the successful realization of an HLC campaign, begun in 2005, when the Center submitted evidence it had gathered on war crimes in Lovas to the War Crimes Prosecutor, requesting that the prosecutor open an investigation.

2007: HLC successfully campaigns for the opening of an investigation into the murder of 700 Bosniaks in Zvornik in 1992 – a crime which is absent from the indictment in the Zvornik case currently before the Belgrade War Crimes Chamber. An investigation started in April 2007.

2007: HLC publishes the entirety of the transcript of the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in B/C/S languages and shares it with Prosecutors Offices, Courts, Judges, and Attorneys at Law in the Western Balkans – thereby assisting in facilitating war crimes trials in the region.

2007: HLC launches its investigations of alleged war criminals using various sources, such as ICTY transcripts, to identify persons alleged to have committed war crimes but against whom no indictment has yet been raised.

2006: HLC and regional partners, Research and Documentation Center (BiH) and Documenta (Croatia) launch a three-year regional civil society consultation on mechanisms of truth-seeing and truth-telling about war crimes. The overall goal is to foster support among a regional civil society coalition that will sensitize the public and national governments in the Western Balkans to establish an official Regional Commission for establishing and disclosing the truth about war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

2006: HLC succeeds in having the Head of the Police War Crimes Investigation Unit, one of its investigators, and another member of the Unit removed from office due to their compromised status; all three occupied positions with the Ministry of Interior during the time of the armed conflict in Kosovo when they knew or should have known about the crimes that were being committed and failed to prevent or report them.

2005: HLC releases a video tape which shows members of “Scorpions”, a unit of the Serbian Interior Ministry, killing six Muslims from Srebrenica in cold blood, thus shocking the Serbian public and revealing Serbia’s involvement in the war crimes committed in Srebrenica.

2005: Defence Council of Boban Simsic, who was convicted of war crimes before the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, requested the court provide ICTY trial transcripts of Mitar Vasiljevic trial in B/C/S languages. The Simsic trial was blocked for three months, until HLC prepared and delivered the B/C/S transcripts.

2004: HLC launches its Victim-Witness Support Programme, encouraging distrusting and hesitant witnesses to come forward and testify in war crimes proceedings before Serbian courts.

Documentation and Memory

In a region plagued by political manipulation of the past, HLC’s painstaking war-crimes documentation based on witness testimonials, oral history, primary records and other relevant and reliable human rights materials significantly contributes to building historical memory of the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Investigating and preserving documents about war crimes and human rights abuses committed during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia is the essential first step for deterring political revisionism.

Justice and Institutional Reform

Confronted with authorities who are reluctant to face the past, HLC is engaging them with facts, and spurring their action to fulfil the rights of victims to justice and reparation. HLC presses for reformed, responsible institutions capable of combating impunity through establishing accountability for past abuses.

Public Information and Outreach

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 in its growing database that is based on relevant and reliable documents. This allows them to draw their own conclusions about events during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

Regional cooperation

In the absence of state initiatives aimed at creating the conditions for dealing with the past in the Western Balkans, HLC has teamed up with two other non-governmental organizations from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia to form a regional partnership in order to document and reveal the truth about war crimes, end impunity, bring perpetrators to justice, and justice to the victims. The Research and Documentation Center – Sarajevo, Documenta from Zagreb, and HLC signed a Protocol on regional cooperation on 6 April 2004 in Sarajevo.

Since the protocol was signed, the three partners have:

- formed a regional team for monitoring domestic war crimes trials 

- organized two regional transitional justice schools

- drafted the first regional Transitional Justice report

- launched a process of regional consultation with civil society on mechanisms of truth-seeking and truth-telling about war crimes in the former Yugoslavia

The Founder

Ms. Natasa Kandic, the founder and executive director of HLC, is a recipient of over 20 international, regional and national human rights awards. In 2000 she was a recipient of the Martin Ennals Award, a prestigious recognition for human rights defenders. Natasa Kandic was also listed by Time magazine as one of 36 European heroes in 2003. In 2004 the People in Need Foundation awarded Kandic and HLC their Homo Homini Award, presented by Vaclav Havel. In 2005 she was proclaimed an honorary citizen of Sarajevo, and Slobodna Bosna magazine named her Person of the Year in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In September 2006, Natasa Kandic became a member of the Order of the Croatian Morning Star of Katarina Zrinska, awarded by the President of Croatia to individuals who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of moral values. In November 2006, Time magazine celebrated Natasa Kandic as one of its heroes of the past 60 years.