OSCE work on war crimes

The OSCE field operations in South Eastern Europe monitor local war crimes trials and carry out other assistance projects to support legal reform processes:

• Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Mission in Kosovo
• Mission to Serbia
• Mission to Skopje
• Office in Zagreb (closed)

In addition, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) is working across South Eastern Europe, in co-operation with OSCE field operations and the ICTY, UN and with European Union funding, on the large-scale War Crimes Justice Project to transfer skills and knowledge from the ICTY to local courts.

War Crimes Justice Project

For the past 17 years, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been the primary body responsible for trying serious violations of international humanitarian law committed during the armed conflicts in the region of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. It is no longer opening new cases, however, and it is expected to finish its current proceedings by the end of 2014.

Under the War Crimes Justice Project, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the ICTY and the UN's Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), with the funding of the European Union, have partnered up to ensure the effective transfer of know-how and materials from the ICTY to the national judicial systems in the countries where the crimes took place.

Since its establishment, the ICTY has played a pioneering role in the development of international criminal justice. The Tribunal possesses unique institutional knowledge and specialized skills, and has generated a massive amount of evidence and legal documentation concerning the atrocities committed in the region.

The ICTY was never intended to be able to prosecute all those alleged to have committed atrocities during the conflicts and, since 2003, has been implementing its completion strategy. Part of that strategy involves the transfer of low- and mid-level perpetrators indicted by the ICTY, as well as case files, back to the countries in the region and a commitment to assist institutions in national jurisdictions in the conduct of those proceedings.

Legal institutions in these jurisdictions have not only been trying the cases transferred by the ICTY but have also been conducting their own investigations and prosecutions of many alleged perpetrators not indicted by the ICTY. Consequently, as the ICTY completes its work, these courts are anticipated to intensify theirs.

The purpose of the War Crimes Justice Project is to assist national authorities in strengthening capacity in their jurisdictions to handle war-crimes trials in an effective and fair manner, consistent with the highest international standards of due process. The project also aims to ensure that national judiciaries have access to ICTY materials in a form that will enable them to conduct their proceedings long after the Tribunal has completed its work.