Newsroom
OSCE distributes human rights texts to Kosovo's courts
PRISTINA 15 July 2003
PRISTINA, 15 July 2003 - The OSCE Mission in Kosovo is providing courtrooms with a Serbian translation of a key legal reference work on European standards of human rights.
The casebook "Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights" (Izvod iz sudske prakse Evropskog suda za ljudska prava) was translated into Serbian as part of a project led by the Council of Europe. The cases in the book were selected by international experts because of their important contribution to understanding of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
"Earlier this year, the OSCE distributed an Albanian language text of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights to the legal community in Kosovo," said Carsten Weber, Director of the OSCE Mission's Department for Human Rights and Rule of Law. "We are now pleased to provide a similar resource for Serbian speaking legal professionals."
The European Court, located in Strasbourg, is the international judicial body that applies and interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a convention made applicable to Kosovo through UNMiK Regulation 1999/24. All courts in Kosovo are expected to apply the rights guaranteed by this convention to cases that come before them.
Although the ECHR has been translated into all major European languages, decisions of the European Court, which interpret the ECHR, have not been available in all these languages. To overcome this problem, the OSCE has been working together with the Criminal Defence Resource Centre to obtain the texts of court decisions in the Albanian and Serbian languages.
With this text, the OSCE is providing an additional important legal resource that will further strengthen the ability of the local legal professionals to learn about and properly apply the ECHR.
The casebook "Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights" (Izvod iz sudske prakse Evropskog suda za ljudska prava) was translated into Serbian as part of a project led by the Council of Europe. The cases in the book were selected by international experts because of their important contribution to understanding of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
"Earlier this year, the OSCE distributed an Albanian language text of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights to the legal community in Kosovo," said Carsten Weber, Director of the OSCE Mission's Department for Human Rights and Rule of Law. "We are now pleased to provide a similar resource for Serbian speaking legal professionals."
The European Court, located in Strasbourg, is the international judicial body that applies and interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a convention made applicable to Kosovo through UNMiK Regulation 1999/24. All courts in Kosovo are expected to apply the rights guaranteed by this convention to cases that come before them.
Although the ECHR has been translated into all major European languages, decisions of the European Court, which interpret the ECHR, have not been available in all these languages. To overcome this problem, the OSCE has been working together with the Criminal Defence Resource Centre to obtain the texts of court decisions in the Albanian and Serbian languages.
With this text, the OSCE is providing an additional important legal resource that will further strengthen the ability of the local legal professionals to learn about and properly apply the ECHR.