Humanitarian Law Center
[1] It was founded in 1992 by Nataša Kandić to document human rights violations across the former Yugoslavia in armed conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and, later, Kosovo.
[4][5] The HLC aims to assist the successor states of the former Yugoslavia establish the rule of law and come to terms with the large-scale human rights abuses committed during armed conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo in particular, prevent the recurrence of such crimes, ensure perpetrators of war crimes are brought to justice and promote the cause of justice.
[6] HLC works across national boundaries to assist post-conflict societies within the region reestablish the rule of law and deal with past human rights abuses.
[1] HLC also implements a victim-oriented Transitional Justice programme with three principal components:[1] Within Serbia, HLC campaigns to ensure that state institutions fulfil their obligations to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses, to provide victims, their families and society with reliable information about the events that led to crimes and abuses, to secure adequate compensation for victims and to bring about the reform of law enforcement agencies, state security bodies and the military forces.
[1] In 2016, the HLC expressed outrage at the acquittal by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of the head of the Serbian Radical Party Vojislav Seselj.
In May 2008, HLC filed criminal charges against Božidar Delić, a retired Major General of the Yugoslav Army, current deputy speaker of the Serbian National Assembly and senior official of the Serbian Radical Party, and another ten members of the Yugoslav Army relating to the massacre at Trnje/Termje, Kosovo, on 25 March 1999, in which members of the 549th Motorised Brigade under Delić's command killed 42 Albanian civilians, including children, women, and elderly people.
[1] In 2005 HLC provided the ICTY with the video tape showing members of the Scorpions, a unit of the Serbian Interior Ministry, executing six Muslims from Srebrenica at Trnovo.
[1] In January 2009 began to research and compile a register of individual citizens of Serbia and Montenegro who were killed or disappeared during the armed conflicts in Slovenia (1991), Croatia (1991–1995) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) with the aim of creating an objective record of the Serbian and Montenegrin victims of the conflicts of 1991–1995 on the territory of the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) that would serve to curb attempts at historical revisionism and manipulative use of the numbers of victims.
By the end of 2010 HLC researchers had interviewed a total of 411 witnesses and family members and analysed 5,381 documents and from these sources had compiled a list of 2,028 citizens[11][12] of Serbia and Montenegro who were killed or disappeared in the wars of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995.
The object is to prevent political manipulation of the number of victims, help society confront the reality of the atrocities committed during the conflict, and build a culture of remembrance.
To date HLC recorded and described the fate of 7,636 Albanians, 845 Serbs, 109 Roma, 64 Bosniaks, 34 Montenegrins, 22 Ashkali, six Gorani, 13 Kosovo Egyptians, six Turks, two Russians, one Croat, two Hungarians, one Macedonian, one Bulgarian, one Ruthenian, two Slovenians, one Yugoslav, and six victims of undetermined nationality.
[14] American Congressmen Roger Wicker and Eliot Engel nominated the HLC together with Natasa Kandic for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018.
