Round-table Event on Tribunal Transparency

In May, IWPR held a round-table debate in The Hague at which participants discussed the tribunal’s treatment of key documents believed to contain evidence of Serbia’s role in the Balkans wars of the Nineties.

Head of the Sarajevo-based section of the Society for Threatened Peoples Fadila Memisevic read letter from Srebrenica massacre survivors, in which they asked for SDC documents to be unsealed, as protective measures left “the victims of the war unable to find peace”.

A major controversy erupted when it was revealed that during the Milosevic trial, tribunal judges agreed to grant confidentiality measures to parts of the transcripts of war-time meetings of Serbia’s Supreme Defence Council, SDC.

The Secrecy and Justice event explored the court’s handling of the documents and considered the effect that keeping them confidential had had on the region and people’s view of the tribunal.

Panelists at the conference – which was attended by Hague court officials, judges, diplomats, journalists, and legal experts – focused on the level of transparency at the tribunal. They considered the effect which concealing information about Serbia’s part in the Yugoslav wars has had on justice and reconciliation in the region.

One speaker was Sir Geoffrey Nice, a former prosecutor in Milosevic trial, who has seen some of the protected SDC documents. While Nice didn’t reveal the content of those documents, he emphasised that they alone do not clarify to what extent Belgrade was responsible for atrocities in Bosnia.

Becirevic, who also sat on the panel, said that the tribunal’s handling of the SDC documents had led people to become sceptical about the court.

Marko Attila Hoare, a former tribunal investigator and a Balkans specialist at the University of Kingston, said that the SDC minutes were important “both for the sake of justice and political progress of the region”.

Finally, Fadila Memisevic, head of the Sarajevo-based section of the Society for Threatened Peoples, read a letter from Srebrenica massacre survivors to president of the tribunal Fausto Pocar. In this, they asked for the SDC documents to be unsealed, as the protective measures left “the victims of the war unable to find peace”.

IWPR’s coverage of this crucial topic (See: Special Report: Secrecy and Justice at the ICTY) subject generated renewed interest in the Bosnian media, and the conference was given much coverage in the Balkans press.