PRISTINA, 13 June 2022 - The Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo (HLCK), joined by the EU and Kosovo Ministry of Justice, presented today in Pristina its guidebook titled “Towards A National Strategy for Transitional Justice in Kosovo".
The guidebook was authored by Thomas Osorio, Senior Research Associate at KU Leuven University, Netherlands, with 20 years of experience in the Western Balkans addressing human rights, transitional justice, post-conflict recovery issues, and reparations, in cooperation with the HLCK’s experts.
The purpose of the document is to inform further work on the development of the Draft Transitional Justice Strategy by the Government of Kosovo.
Speaking at the event, the Kosovo Minister of Justice, Albulena Haxhiu, said the drafting of the national strategy until now has been challenging, since Kosovo institutions are lacking the capacity to draft such a strategy. Therefore, a guidebook such as the one Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo is presenting is more than welcomed and will be taken into consideration.
EU Ambassador in Kosovo, Tomas Szunyog, encouraged the Government of Kosovo to use the guidebook in finalizing its own draft Transitional Justice Strategy, ensuring that the needs and views of victims and marginalized groups are taken into account.
"The implementation of the strategy for the Transitional Justice will help in coming to terms with the past and will contribute to reconciliation," said Szunyog.
Besnik Beqaj, Research at HLCK, briefly presented the main points of the guide and highlighted the recommendations of the document. He stressed that the needs of victims must be in the focus of the strategy.
Following the presentation, a discussion on the importance and challenges in the development of the Transitional Justice Strategy in Kosovo between Bekim Blakaj, Executive Director of HLCK and the Head of the Division for Transitional Justice at the Ministry of Justice, Baki Svirca, followed the presentation of the Guide.
They noted that there have been many initiatives concerning Transitional Justice in Kosovo, but that the process lacked consistency, and that Kosovo now needs a strategy which would gather and provide a common platform for all the ongoing initiatives in the transitional justice.
The publication of the guidebook and the discussion are part of the wider project “Transforming conflicting perceptions through increased civic and community engagement in Kosovo” supported by the EU in Kosovo.
For more information about the presentation of the guidebook and the discussion, please follow the link here.
"Towards A National Transitional Justice Strategy for Kosovo" document is available here.