IRMCT and NGOs on the legacy of the ICTY

On Wednesday, January 30, 2019, a meeting of representatives of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts (IRMCT) and of non-governmental organizations from Serbia was held at the premises of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC). The meeting was attended by the IRMCT Secretary-General, Olufemi Elias, and his associates, and by representatives of the HLC, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights and the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights. Participants in the meeting discussed the continuation of the cooperation as regards the transfer of facts established by the courts in The Hague, which were responsible for helping to punish violations of international humanitarian law during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The need for a new and more active approach to the younger generations, the importance of their receiving continuous information and education on events from the recent past, the need to overcome the social climate of denial of crimes and denial of responsibility, and a vigorous advocacy for removing impunity for war crimes, were emphasized.

Representatives of the IRMCT visited the library and archive of the HLC, and were informed in more detail about the transfer of the publicly accessible archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which the HLC has been carrying out for almost 15 years.