Open Call for Mentorship Program on Transitional Justice Deadline to apply: 08 May 2025

Are you a young person (18–25 years old) from Kosovo1 or Serbia passionate about dealing with the past and exploring Transitional Justice? The Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo (HLC Kosovo) and the Humanitarian Law Center Foundation (HLC) invite you to apply for a three-month mentorship program focused on research and writing. 

What is the program about?
This mentorship opportunity is designed to support youth from Kosovo and Serbia to deepen their understanding of Transitional Justice through guided research. Selected participants will work on short research papers (5–10 pages) on relevant topics and will receive personalized mentorship from staff members of HLC Kosovo and HLC. 

(srpski) Osumnjičeni zločinci u Pionirskom parku

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New episode of the podcast Cultures of Memory in Dialogue: “How to (Dis)courage Acknowledging Responsibility”

Academic research often highlights the positive role of online memory activism in promoting alternative views on the legacy of war. Human rights activists increasingly use social media to advocate for justice and reconciliation in post-conflict settings, counter war crimes denial, mobilize public support, and foster open discussions on these issues.

The 2024 study Social Media, Stereotypes, and the Acknowledgement of War Crimes (Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Taylor & Francis) explores the role of social media in facilitating the acknowledgment of war crimes committed by one’s own ethnic group. The findings reveal that individuals are less willing to acknowledge their group’s responsibility for war crimes on social media. The study sheds light on the unexpected negative consequences of mediated visibility of war crimes and challenges assumptions of digital universalism, showing that the implications of visibility are context-dependent.

(srpski) Podrška borbi za utvrđivanje činjenica i odgovornosti za nesreću na železničkoj stanici u Novom Sadu 1. 11. 2024.

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Conference: Prosecuting War Crimes in the Countries of the Former Yugoslavia – A Twenty-Year Review

The Humanitarian Law Center is organizing an international conference titled “Prosecuting War Crimes in the Countries of the Former Yugoslavia – A Twenty-Year Review” to evaluate the results of the trials so far and provide concrete recommendations for improving these processes, especially in the area of prosecuting sexual war crimes and the position of victims in legal proceedings.

The societal repercussions of historical revisionism, the media’s glorification of convicted war criminals, and the relativization of judicially established facts will also be discussed during the conference.

This is the first conference in over a decade that brings together war crimes prosecutors, judges, ministry representatives, victims’ families, NGOs, and the media from the region for a discussion and analysis of the prosecution of war crimes in the courts of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. The organizer of the conference, the Humanitarian Law Center, is the only organization that has been continuously monitoring and analyzing war crimes trials in Serbia since the first trial.

New Episode of Memory Cultures in Dialogue: „A Desirable Memory” (in BCS)

Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in how the memory of past crimes informs and shapes state policies and international relations. Social scientists, except historians, had largely ignored the Holocaust despite its centrality to many of their concepts and theories and the need to view the crime from the standpoint of various disciplines.

A multidisciplinary perspective on the Holocaust is offered in the book „Politics, Violence, Memory: The New Social Science of the Holocaust“, published by Cornell University Press. The book explores the sources and measurement of antisemitism, explanations for collaboration, rescue, and survival, accounts of neighbor-on-neighbor violence, and the legacy of the Holocaust in contemporary Europe.

New Episode of Memory Cultures in Dialogue: „Reconciliation through RECOM“ (in BCS)

The initiative to establish the Regional Commission for Establishing the Facts about War Crimes and Other Serious Human Rights Violations in the former Yugoslavia (RECOM) attracted significant attention from both domestic and international audiences. Among the various initiatives for truth-seeking and justice, the RECOM initiative stood out due to its originality and sustainability.

Denisa Kostovicova’s new book, Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes, analyzes the consultations initiated by civil society activists between 2006 and 2011. These consultations aimed to define the nature and scope of the regional truth commission and culminated in the drafting and adoption of the RECOM Statute. Although states have since withdrawn support for a regional approach to dealing with the legacy of a shared past, RECOM Reconciliation Network research projects continue.

The Official Commemoration of the War Year 1991 in Croatia: Analysis and Recommendations

The document titled „Official Commemoration of the War Year 1991 in Croatia: Analysis and Recommendations“ provides an in-depth analysis of how Croatia officially commemorated the events of 1991, marking 30 years since the war began. Despite the fact it is almost three decades since the end of the conflict, the war remains a central element of the Republic of Croatia’s identity. The authorities place a significant emphasis on commemorating the start of the war, especially focusing on 1991.

(srpski) Ratni zločin u Škabrnji tri decenije posle: Dobrodošli u živo selo

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New Episode of Memory Cultures in Dialogue: Exiting the 1990s

Public memory of war victims is often dominated by ethnocentric narratives as a national strategy, emphasizing the scale of crimes of Other while marginalizing one’s own. What’s missing seems to be not only a moral reckoning but also a continuous historical-didactic, pedagogical, media, museological, and aesthetic debate as the foundation for creating a memory culture that includes remembering the crimes committed in our own name.

Memory culture is not necessarily a process aimed at reconciliation with crimes or forgiveness. Rather, it is about learning how to live with memory, recognizing that crimes are a part of our history and collective identity. It is also a process of learning that shared ways of living before the crimes existed and that such ways can be rebuilt through the effort of all actors and socio-political engagement aimed at dismantling identity politics that focus solely on ethnic-national identities.