Today, the Tribunal’s Outreach Programme concluded its acclaimed Youth Outreach Project for the 2012/13 academic year with a university lecture at the Faculty of Law in Split, Croatia and a presentation at the high school in Rogova in Kosovo.

Nearly 2,400 students from 40 high schools and more than 1,100 students from 25 universities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo benefited from the project during 2012-13. Presentations took place in some of the communities most affected by the wars of the 1990s, including Bratunac, Sanski Most, Brčko, Stolac, Vukovar, Zadar, Knin, Peć/Peja and Podujevo/Podujeva. The presentations in high schools provided factual information on the Tribunal’s work and achievements, while university lectures introduced the students to more complex topics related to the court’s jurisprudence.

“We were encouraged to see that young people in the region have a strong desire to find out more about the Tribunal and to play substantive role in the processes of dealing with the past”, said Nenad Golčevski who heads The Hague office of the ICTY Outreach Programme.

Reaching out to the next generation in the former Yugoslavia has been a core objective of the ICTY’s Youth Outreach Project. The project, started in 2011, aims to encourage high school and university students to actively engage with the Tribunal’s work and achievements, as well as to contribute to the ongoing regional debate on wider issues of transitional justice mechanisms, international criminal law and post-conflict development.

 “Ignorance creates a gap between people of different nationalities” and ICTY presentations “contribute to better understanding among people”, said a fourth-year high school student from Višegrad in the BiH entity of Republika Srpska.

As the ICTY moves towards the completion of its mandate, the Outreach Programme is intensifying its efforts to increase the access of key stakeholders such as young people to information on the Tribunal’s work and achievements. In doing so, the Outreach Programme seeks to promote a greater understanding of the Tribunal’s work and its legacy throughout the former Yugoslavia.

The Outreach Programme benefits from the continuous support of the European Union and its work with the youth of the former Yugoslavia is generously supported by the Finnish government.