Sarajevo, 5 July 2012
The Outreach office in Sarajevo today welcomed participants from the Aegis Students Discover Bosnia Project as a part of their 16-day study trip to the region. The group of nine young law and international relations students from universities in the UK and America were specifically keen on learning about the Tribunal’s role in post-war reconciliation, as well as the different perceptions that people in the region of the former Yugoslavia have about the Tribunal’s works and achievements.
Outreach representative Almir Alić talked about the Tribunal’s Outreach activities and how they contribute to dealing with the past in the region. The students were especially eager to hear about Outreach activities targeting high school and university students, as well as experiences in working with war victims’ groups and civil society.
The group also met with representatives of the Tribunal’s Office of the Prosecutor and the Victims and Witnesses Section, who talked to the students about their respective activities on the ground in the region.
Finally, the students were given the opportunity to watch Outreach’s feature-length documentary on wartime sexual violence, and to learn more about the groundbreaking legal precedents set by the Tribunal in the fight against impunity for these types of crime.
Commenting on the importance of such presentations, Richard S.A. Newell, Discover Trips co-ordinator, said “International criminal justice, as a concept, is still yet fledgling, but when, hopefully, historians come to look back at the development of what is potentially one of the greatest and most necessary concepts humanity has yet to produce, the role the ICTY has played in the development and growth of international criminal law should be writ large. We are proud to be doing this project in partnership with the ICTY Outreach Office in Sarajevo, and we would like to thank Almir and his colleagues for this really valuable opportunity to gain an insight into the immense amount of really important work the Tribunal does”.