On 30 and 31 May 2024, the President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism), Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, participated in a two-day international conference held in Prijedor and Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
President Gatti Santana delivered a keynote address at the first part of the conference, which was held in Prijedor on 30 May 2024 and organised by the Sarajevo Memorial Centre together with the Kozarac Association of Detainees. Being the first conference entirely dedicated to the detention camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s conflicts, this marked a significant event, bringing together speakers from a variety of disciplines and those most directly affected: the survivors of crimes committed in detention camps. President Gatti Santana also took the opportunity to visit the location of the detention camp in Trnopolje which, together with the Omarska and Keraterm camps, was among the most notorious in the municipality of Prijedor for the horrors endured by the detainees.
On 31 May 2024, the conference continued in the city of Sarajevo, focusing on war crimes committed in Prijedor and its surroundings, as well as messages for the future. President Gatti Santana delivered a video message for this second component of the conference, which was organised by the City of Sarajevo and the Sarajevo Memorial Centre, with the support of a number of other national and international stakeholders.
In her interventions, President Gatti Santana referred to the contributions made by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Mechanism in establishing the relevant facts, as well as the ICTY’s role in advancing international criminal law through groundbreaking rulings that clarified the scope of war crimes and crimes against humanity. With respect to crimes committed in detention camps, President Gatti Santana also highlighted the need to acknowledge that people of different ethnicities were victims of atrocities in such camps across Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Referring to the Mechanism’s efforts to strengthen and consolidate the legacy of the ICTY, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Mechanism itself, the President underscored that accepting the judicial findings made by these institutions can help combat divisive forces such as denial, revisionism, and the glorification of convicted war criminals. She further emphasised the role national jurisdictions play in the pursuit of justice, which the Mechanism continues to actively support.
