As delivered

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would always be delighted to open this Conference on Transitional Justice and Human Rights – but the beautiful surroundings of Venice International University make it all the better.

It is a pleasure to welcome you all, representatives of International Courts, International Organisations, judicial authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, Italian authorities, international experts. I would like to thank you for your participation in this event, the aim of which is to discuss developing a curriculum for legal professionals on Transitional justice in the Western Balkans.

Transitional justice in the former Yugoslavia

Transitional justice, in the context of the obligations set by the European Convention on Human Rights, is the right to deal with the past. It is about implementing the necessary measures to redress the legacies of massive human rights abuses.

It is a means of achieving justice in the most difficult of circumstances, as a country tries to move on from a conflict. Transitional justice seeks to establish accountability as well as recognise the rights and status of victims. It then becomes a platform on which trust can be rebuilt and the rule of law can be strengthened.

During the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, more than 130,000 people were killed and almost 4 million others were displaced throughout the 1990s. Horrible crimes were committed against thousands of victims: widespread attacks against civilians, population expulsions, systematic rape, torture, enslavement and the use of camps.

After the conflicts, it was clear that transitional justice in the region had to be based on four pillars: criminal prosecutions; reparations of victims; institutional reforms and guarantees of non-recurrence.

Criminal prosecution is crucial for inter-ethnic reconciliation and peace. States have to combat impunity as a matter of justice for the victims, to deter future human rights violations and in order to uphold the rule of law and public confidence in the justice system.

But justice is not only retributive – hence why reparations of victims are important. We need to provide adequate, effective and proportionate reparation to those who have been hurt.

And institutional reforms are needed to stop history repeating itself. Reform of the justice system and establishing efficient and independent national human rights structures is crucial in that respect.

Achievements

In recent years, Western Balkan countries have made huge steps forward in this direction. The institutions you represent have been the main protagonists. Let me mention just a few achievements:

• The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has indicted 161 people and convicted 74 for serious violations of international humanitarian law: one of the most important developments in International Law in a generation.

• Serbia established the War Crimes Chamber of the District Court in Belgrade and the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor of the Republic of Serbia.

• Extensive prosecutions have taken place in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the cantonal and district levels, as well as before the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2008, the Council of Ministers of BiH adopted the National War Crimes Processing Strategy that refers to an estimated 10,000 suspects, of whom about 1,300 are under active investigation.

• Reparations to victims of the conflicts have taken several forms, including financial compensation, restitution of property and the building of memorials.

• Important reforms are also under way in the judicial sector.

We should underline these successes and pay tribute to your institutions – and all those who have served in them – for everything that has already been done.

I am proud to add that the Council of Europe fully supported these efforts, notably through co-operation projects in the area.

Of course, there is still a great deal left to do.

Challenges Ahead - Commissioner for Human Rights’ reports

The Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, in his monitoring activity, has identified many persistent problems related to transitional justice in the Western Balkans.

In terms of criminal prosecutions, the Commissioner has noted a number of problems limiting the efficiency of domestic justice systems, creating serious obstacles in trying war crime cases. It’s worth listing them:

• lack of adequate expertise by national judges and prosecutors;
• weak witness protection systems, especially for victims of sexual violence during the war;

• slow pace of war crimes trials;
• obstacles related to the application of different criminal codes;
• lack of willingness and  expertise of the police to investigate war crimes;
• insufficient coordination between the various justice sector institutions;
• difficulties for victims to access justice and obtain adequate, effective and proportionate reparation;
• obstacles to regional effective inter-state co-operation;
• weak systems of protection for the human rights of people displaced by the war;
• issues related to the enforcement of domestic judicial decisions.

Before we can sufficiently deal with any of these problems, we have to boost the expertise of the legal professionals involved.

Training needs on Transitional justice and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights

This comes through the Commissioner’s analysis: national legal professionals need to be trained on the specifics of transitional justice.

War crimes investigations and prosecutions at the domestic level are complex; the legal framework is fragmented. Recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, such as Maktouf and Ališić, demonstrates this complexity. And then there is the issue of implementing Court judgments from Strasbourg alongside domestic judicial decisions. The number of applications filed before the ECtHR against Western Balkans countries has been growing in recent years, and, as a result, the number of ECtHR judgments has too, including on important transitional justice issues.

Furthermore many important reforms have taken place in the region in recent years, notably the introduction of new criminal codes and criminal procedure codes, which, among other things, introduce common law notions (i.e. plea bargaining) into a system which was previously predominantly civil law.

So for these reasons the Council of Europe’s European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) has proposed the development of a new model curriculum in transitional justice for the Western Balkans countries.

The HELP initiative

HELP is today the only pan-European programme for the legal education of judges, prosecutors and lawyers and helps all 47 Council of Europe member States comply with human rights standards by enhancing the capacity of judges, prosecutors and lawyers to apply the ECHR at a national level – as a follow up to the 2012 Brighton Declaration.

The new curriculum in transitional justice will be developed using HELP methodology.

The first beneficiaries of the project will be legal professionals from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

A regional approach

Each country which was formerly part of Yugoslavia faces its own challenges. Therefore the curriculum will need to be tailored to their specific needs, reflecting differences between the various legal systems.

However, there will also need to be a regional dimension. This was highlighted during the very recent Regional Conference on “The effective use of national remedies in domestic legal proceedings and the subsidiary role of the European Court of Human Rights”. The Conference was held in Zagreb a few weeks ago and gathered together the key actors implementing the ECHR in the former Yugoslav countries.

Legal orders of the Western Balkans countries have a common origin and similar structural aspects. I hope that this will foster a fruitful exchange of practices among legal professionals from the region.

A strict co-operation with all stakeholders

On that note, I should say that collaboration must be at the heart of this endeavour. This is a key aspect of HELP: co-operation with all stakeholders and with all international organisations, international courts and the bodies which provide training.

This is crucial, to avoid duplications, to organise synergies, to collect additional information, to better identify targets and training needs, and to make best use of the training materials that are already in existence.

And so let me reiterate how pleased I am that all of you have accepted the HELP invitation to join us around this table. To succeed, we need to work together. Thank you for your commitment.

Venice

Finally, I want to end by saying that I believe that Venice is an ideal location for this project.

It can be seen as a crossroads between the East and West in the heart of Europe, the Balkans and the Mediterranean. Thanks to its long tradition of democratic participation, Venice has always been a city of intercultural dialogue and today, with the presence of many institutions and organisations active in the field, it can indeed be counted as one of the leading centers in Europe and beyond on human rights and intercultural education.

It is also important to mention the Venice Commission, established in 1990 with the support of the Veneto Region, and, for educational aspects, the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC), the Venice International University (VIU) and the University of Ca’ Foscari.

I look forward to the exchange of ideas, discussion and debate that we will have today and I trust that this conference will help the ongoing efforts to reinforce transitional justice in the Western Balkans and to make the region more peaceful and, above all, more just.

Thank you