ICTY: Leading Academic Praises Special Report

IWPR’s other work in the Hague was also welcomed by journalists and analysts across the Balkans following the end of the key trial of two Bosnian Serbs, Milan and Sredoje Lukic. The cousins were indicted for the horrific crimes committed in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad at the beginning of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

Dejan Milenkovic, assistant professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade and a member of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, said IWPR reporting “can help re-establish mutual trust among different ethnic groups in the region and for that reason [the reports] are necessary and extremely important”.

“I’ve learned a lot from [the Lukic trial] report, things I didn’t know before. There should definitely be more stories like this in the media, because without facing the past, there cannot be true reconciliation in the region,” he said.

An IWPR special report on the uncertain future of the international judges and prosecutors engaged by the Bosnian State Court was republished and debated by several leading legal and rights associations in Europe and the United States.

It explored how while politicians from Republika Srpska argued that the country should be left to run its own courts, local and international observers warn that if the Bosnian parliament fails to vote to retain the staff, the work of the country’s war crimes court could be seriously undermined.

"This is the most comprehensive, fairest treatment of the issue that I have seen or heard in any media."
Robert Donia, professor of history at the University of Michigan

The report was republished by Human Rights in Geneva, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia and The American Bar Association, ABA, the world's largest professional organisation with a membership of over 400,000.

Robert Donia, professor of history at the University of Michigan, said that the article gave “a broad, balanced view of a contemporary issue that is currently before the legislative bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as a reader it enabled me to understand the issue better and to appreciate the views of various stakeholders in the debate.

“This is the most comprehensive, fairest treatment of the issue that I have seen or heard in any media.”