Oslo seminar discusses how to prioritise war crimes cases
This post is also available in: Bosnian
The seminar in Oslo, was organised by the International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Forum.Besides other issues, the seminar focused on the Bosnian judiciary and investigating war crimes.
Speakers from Bosnia and Herzegovina included among others, Mirsad Tokaca, President of the Research and Documentation Centre, Milorad Barasin, Chief Prosecutor with the State Prosecutor’s Office, Refik Hodzic, on behalf of the ICTY Office in Sarajevo, and others.
The seminar organisers consider that the United Nations Security Council’s move in May 1993, to set up the ICTY, showed the political will of the international community to respond to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide though judicial means.
Processing mechanisms were formed in many countries or for countries, such as Rwanda, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Iraq, Indonesia, Colombia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo among others.
Some courts were established in the countries in which the crimes were committed, while others were formed outside those countries. In some cases, trials are conducted before the International Criminal Court, ICC.
Through the implementation of these, it was determined that a large number of cases would have to be processed in those countries, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well. The need to establish a system of case priorities was recognised.
In the course of the seminar international experts tried to figure out how to make an overview of all cases in the best possible way, how to determine priority cases to be investigated or tried, how to handle the large number of cases and so on.
Besides speakers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Norway, Rwanda and Argentina, the seminar was attended by the United States Ambassador for War Crimes, Clint Williamson.
