Database on War Crimes and Human Rights Violations in the Past
The core of HLC’s program is the Database on War Crimes and Human Rights Violations in the Past (Database), which enables professional organization, easy search, and permanent storage of data and documentation on war crimes and other serious human rights violations.
Content
Since its establishment at the end of 2004 until January 1, 2012, more than 40,000 documents have been entered into the Database. Over 16,000 of these documents were created through the documentation of war crimes and other human rights violations in the territory of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, conducted by the HLC since its founding. Among the most valuable are witness statements—eyewitnesses to war crimes and human rights violations, and/or family members of victims, deceased, or missing members of armed forces. To date, the HLC has collected over 11,400 witness statements. The majority of these relate to war crimes and human rights violations in Kosovo (9,930), followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina – over 451 statements, Croatia – more than 470, and human rights violations in Serbia – over 500. The HLC’s Database also contains over 70 statements related to human rights violations in Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Albania.
The Database also stores photographs of victims, mass graves, execution sites, memorials, monuments, and gravestones. It includes and analyzes evidentiary materials presented at trials before the ICTY. So far, more than 6,133 such documents have been entered into the Database. In addition, the HLC stores court documentation from war crimes trials in the region, as well as documentation from all previous proceedings in which HLC lawyers represented victims. The Database also contains reports by international and local governmental and non-governmental organizations, foreign and domestic institutions and agencies, media archives, and many other documents.
Data on Victims, Combatants, and Perpetrators
Through the analysis of documentation in the HLC Database, dossiers have been created for 25,659 victims of war crimes and other human rights violations, as well as members of military and police forces and volunteer units from across the former Yugoslavia who lost their lives in combat. These dossiers contain personal and family information, data on the date and place of death or disappearance, burial, perpetrators, etc. Each individual dossier is linked to all documents—sources containing information about that person.
The most numerous are the dossiers of those killed, missing, or deceased in Kosovo during the period 1998–2000 (over 13,000); citizens of Serbia and Montenegro killed, missing, or deceased in the wars in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (about 2,000). The Database also contains dossiers for several thousand citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia killed, missing, or deceased in the wars from 1991–1995, and over 8,000 dossiers of victims of other violations of international humanitarian law: forced displacement, deportation, unlawful detention, torture, etc. Additionally, more than 1,500 dossiers of possible perpetrators of war crimes and other human rights violations have been created in the Database.
