Legal professionals in Skopje learn how to access ICTY material under OSCE/ODIHR-led project

SKOPJE, 20 June 2011 – A series of four training seminars organized over two days on accessing and researching material of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) began in Skopje today. Twenty staff members of the Courts and Prosecutors’ Offices are attending.

The course, which was conducted by the ICTY, is part of the War Crimes Justice Project led by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and funded by the European Union. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of legal professionals in the region to handle complex war crimes cases.

This course will help national staff working on complex war crimes cases to locate ICTY information and materials relevant to their work, including through ICTY databases. It also covered the submission of requests to the ICTY for legal assistance and for protective measures under the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence.

Romana Schweiger, ODIHR’s Regional Co-ordinator of the War Crimes Justice Project, said it was increasingly important that national legal institutions had the skills to access to ICTY material as the Tribunal begins to phase out.

“The training course helps staff from national institutions learn how to access the publicly available material they need for national proceedings and how to make requests to the Tribunal for further material not published on the ICTY’s website,” she said.

The War Crimes Justice Project is a four-million euro regional project funded by the European Union and carried out by ODIHR in partnership with the ICTY, the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute and OSCE field operations.

This project is funded by the European Union

For more information please contact: Sanela Tunovic, War Crimes Justice Project Outreach Officer at: +387 61 539 535 or e-mail: at wcjp@odihr.pl.