ICTY Conducts Training Session for Macedonian Legal Professionals

The Hague, 20 June 2011
DZ/MOW/1421e

ICTY Conducts Training Session for Macedonian Legal Professionals

 

Today, the Tribunal began a two-day training session with 20 legal professionals from the Basic Court Skopje 1, the Appellate Court and the Basic Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime from Skopje, as part of the War Crimes Justice Project (WCJP).

The goal of the training, which is taking place in Skopje, is to share the Tribunal’s institutional knowledge and specialised skills with jurisdictions in the region as a means of enhancing their capacity to handle complex war crimes cases.

The training is intended to strengthen the ability of the Tribunal’s local counterparts to locate and research ICTY information and materials relevant to their work. The training session will cover the use of electronic research tools such as the website, the ICTY Court Records Database and the Appeals Chambers Case Law Research Tool. It will also cover making requests to the ICTY for legal assistance and for variation of protective measures under the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence.

Commenting on the training session, Romana Schweiger, ODIHR’s Regional Co-ordinator of the War Crimes Justice Project, said “The training course helps staff from national institutions to learn how to access publicly available material they need for national proceedings. It also shows them how to request from the Tribunal material not published on the ICTY’s website.”

This is the first training session of legal professionals to be held in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as part of the WCJP. Since the launch of the WCJP in July 2010, the Tribunal has conducted a total of 27 training sessions for over 120 legal professionals from Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo.

The War Crimes Justice Project is a 4-million euro regional project funded by the European Union and carried out by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) in partnership with the ICTY, the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) and OSCE field operations.

War Crimes Justice Project Partners
This project is funded by the European Union	Implemented by: