Representatives of the Srebrenica Memorial Center held a presentation of their work and experience from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Kyiv for activists and representatives of the Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian organization that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
The Center for Civil Liberties was founded in Kyiv in 2007 and operates in human rights protection, strengthening democracy and the rule of law, documenting human rights violations, and supporting accountability processes.
The meeting took place at the organization’s headquarters in Kyiv, with online participation from activists and researchers working in the field across Ukraine. The talk focused on the exchange of experiences on documenting war crimes, working with victims and witnesses, data protection and systemization, and the long-term use of documentation in judicial, research, educational and memorial processes, as announced by the Srebrenica Memorial Center.
The Srebrenica Memorial Center presented good practices developed in Bosnia and Herzegovina over a decades-long process of documenting genocide and other war crimes. Special attention was paid to methodologies for data collection and preservation, work with the families of victims and missing persons, institutional management of archival records, as well as how judicially established facts can be utilized in education, research, and the culture of remembrance.
As part of the presentation, the legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, as well as experiences related to the International Court of Justice and domestic judicial institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, were presented. Discussions also included experiences related to witness testimonies, forensic findings, military and police documentation, archival records, and other sources in procedures for establishing facts and criminal liability.
The statement said that the Center for Civil Liberties activists especially showed interest in the legislative and institutional framework which was developed in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war, the status of families of victims and missing persons, social and status rights, access to information and documentation, as well as the relationship between judicial proceedings and the long-term societal recognition of victims’ rights.
Part of the meeting was devoted to the work of the “Tribunal for Putin” (T4P) initiative, which was established following the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Through this initiative, the organizations from different parts of Ukraine document events that may bear the hallmarks of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
“During the discussion, the operational modalities of the T4P initiative were considered, including field collection of information, recording individual incidents, verification and data systematization, working with witnesses and victims, and linking information collected across different regions of the country. Particular attention was given to how to collect documentation in a way that enables its long-term use in judicial proceedings, research, advocacy, and the memorialization process. Also, methods were presented on how T4P utilizes existing international mechanisms of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the European Union, and the International Criminal Court in an effort to ensure that the collected information contributes to determining accountability and protecting the rights of victims,” stated the press release from the Srebrenica Memorial Center.
The exchange was directed towards the Srebrenica experience, especially on the relationship between documenting crimes, working with victims’ families, identifying missing persons, judicially established facts, and their long-term institutional preservation. Representatives of the Memorial Center pointed out the significance of continuity between documenting during and immediately after the war and subsequent processes of justice, education, and memorialization.
The Srebrenica Memorial Center and the Center for Civil Liberties will continue communication to connect experts and organizations from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine, and to develop concrete forms of cooperation in areas of mutual interest, as announced by the Srebrenica Memorial Center.
