Budva, 11 September 2013
Matthew Gillet, ICTY trial attorney, and Morgiana Brading, Outreach representative and Registry Liaison Officer, travelled to Budva in Montenegro to speak to a group of around 50 students attending a human rights summer school at the Straniak Academy for Democracy and Human Rights organised by Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights from Vienna.
The summer school gathered students from several countries, including all the countries of the former Yugoslavia, Germany, Hungary and Austria. Morgiana gave a brief introduction about the Tribunal, its main achievements and transition towards the Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunals, and Matthew then talked in depth about the examination and cross-examination of witnesses before the Tribunal.
The presentation was well-received and gave rise to a lively and lengthy debate on topics such as joint criminal enterprise (JCE) and command responsibility, with the students being keen to discuss how it can be proven whether someone is part of a JCE.
Towards the end conversation turned to more general topics and one student asked the presenters whether they considered the ICTY to have been a success.
Matthew said that, although the Tribunal was not perfect, it had nevertheless been a great success. “It was very important that everything that happened [in the Balkan wars] was put through a legal process and that everyone had a chance to present their case,” he told the students.