Tribunal: April '07

A series of IWPR articles on key documents which the International Court of Justice failed to demand from Serbia before ruling on Bosnia’s genocide case, generated a series of articles and debates in the international and local media. Also a new trial at the Hague tribunal sparked considerable international interest in April



A number of articles appeared in international media on some key documents from the Milosevic trial which were not submitted to the ICJ and which, apparently, might have changed the outcome of the ruling in Bosnia's genocide case against Serbia. These articles were published in the Herald Tribune, the New York Times, AP, Jutarnji List, Dnevni Avaz, and were quoted in a number of electronic media, such as B92, Bosnian state and Federal television, BHT1 and FTV, and Croatian television HRT.



IWPR broke the story several weeks before, and a former leading tribunal prosecutor told us that the current media frenzy was set in motion by our reports on the issue.



As a result of media coverage of the secret documents, Croatia's president and prime minister, Stjepan Mesic and Ivo Sanader, respectively have said they will demand access to them, as the Zagreb authorities prepare for their own lawsuit against Serbia.



Additionally, the trial of Macedonia's former minister of interior Ljube Boskoski and another police official Johan Tarculoski started on April 16 at the ICTY - the first and most likely the only trial at this court involving Macedonians. It sparked a lot of interest in the international media and we gave interviews to the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita and Radio France International, and provided background information on the case to a number of journalists in Bosnia. We talked not only about the Boskoski-Tarculoski case, but also discussed the tribunal's very slim chances of completing scheduled trials before the 2008/2010 deadline set by the UN.



Also in April, we began talks with a leading international broadcaster about producing a weekly half-an-hour programme for its Balkan section on subjects raised by our tribunal output. The aim of the project is to maximise our impact in the region.