Niš, 14 May 2014
In the first of a three-part series of lectures to be held this week at universities in Serbia, ICTY Registry court officer Ljiljana Hellman today spoke to over 100 students and professors at the law faculty of the Niš University. During her lecture she talked about the overarching legal framework and the specific ICTY practice relating to genocide and command responsibility.
This proved to be a popular topic and the students actively participated in the discussion throughout the two hour session. They were especially interested in the process of proving the crime of genocide in the ICTY proceedings. One student expressed the opinion that the public and the victims sometimes insist, without good reason, on genocide convictions, even though it is possible to severely punish the accused for committing crimes against humanity or war crimes.
A large number of students’ questions were related to the Gotovina et al., Šešelj and Haradinaj et al. cases. In addition, the students were also interested to learn more about the ICTY’s practice in prosecuting the crimes of sexual violence.
At the end of lecture, students and professors thanked Ljiljana and expressed their interest for another ICTY lecture to be held soon at their university.