What we do

Justice Documentation and Memorialization Education Reconciliation

Justice

The war in Kosovo lasted from February 28, 1998 until June 12, 1999, when the Kumanovo Agreement was signed. Many crimes against the civilian population and war crimes have been committed during this time. Therefore, after the end of the war in Kosovo, the first major hearings were opened regarding the accusations of these crimes. Since 2000, the Kosovo Humanitarian Law Center has been engaged in monitoring and analyzing war crimes trials. Thus contributing to strengthening the rule of law in Kosovo through reports and recommendations on the best ways to improve the performance of the judiciary, as well as the legislation and procedures applied in war crimes trials. The HLC also assists in representing victims in compensation proceedings and filing legal complaints against perpetrators of war crimes in Serbia.


Our commitment to justice continues through various forms of advocacy that enable the fulfillment of the right of victims to justice and inform the general public about war crimes trials.

Monitoring War Crime Trials
The HLCK is the only organization that systematically monitors and analyzes war crimes trials and ethnically and / or politically motivated crime trials at the Kosovo level.

Since the end of the armed conflict in Kosovo, the Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo (HLCK) is implementing the project "Monitoring of war crimes trials and criminal offenses with a political and ethnic background in Kosovo."

In the framework of this project, HLCK monitors all court hearings in these trials before the courts in Kosovo and collects court documentation from these trials. As a result of monitoring court hearings and analyzing court documentation, the HLCK prepares an analysis of each trial after the end of the trial. In addition to preparing analyzes and publishing them, the HLCK regularly publishes an annual report on war crimes cases and criminal offenses with ethnic or political backgrounds. The annual report contains detailed information on the court proceedings that took place during the calendar year, the analysis of court cases with the findings and recommendations to the relevant institutions. Also, HLCK within this project realizes the component of youth education, engaging students in monitoring court hearings and involving them in professional discussions on Transitional Justice. In this way, students supplement their theoretical knowledge with practical work.

The HLCK is the only organization that systematically monitors and analyzes war crimes trials and ethnically and / or politically motivated crime trials at the Kosovo level.

Search through finished war crime cases
See the cases

Documentation and Memorialization

Although more than two decades have passed since the end of the wars in the former Yugoslavia, there has been little political will to face the legacy of a violent past. Since 1998, HLC Kosovo together with HLC have collected victims' stories, data and evidence, thus documenting every person killed and / or missing during the war in Kosovo. We are committed to keeping victims' memory alive through various initiatives, including exhibitions, documentaries, lectures and other forms of digital memory.

Storytelling Events
DwP Histories

The "DwP Histories" series is an initiative of open discussions that aim to tell the stories of different people, shedding light on their lives before, during, and after the war. These discussions are hosted at the Documentation Center Kosovo, the public space of HLCK, that has been established to inform and document Kosovo war through dealing with the past and Transitional Justice.

The objective of the "DwP Histories" discussions is to create a platform for individuals to share their experiences and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the war's impact on individuals and communities.

Furthermore, the discussions aim to create an opportunity for the public to learn more about the experiences of those who have been directly impacted by the war. This allows for a better understanding also of the social, cultural, and economic effects of the conflict.


Luigj Ndou tells his personal story for ’DwP Histories’ describing the 90s and the events that led to the war. As a professional psychotherapist, he offers us his perspective on war and a detailed analysis of violence, perpetrators and torture as the main tools of totalitarian regimes.

During the NATO bombings, Mr. Ndou was in Belgrade as a PhD candidate. He talks about the challenges of living there, how he and his friends were captured by the Serbian police and how they suffered as prisoners in Belgrade, where they were locked up for 27 days in a police station before being sent to prison.

Ramë Manaj tells his personal story for "Dealing with the Past - Histories". He starts his narration with memories from his childhood, the difficulties and the distance of several kilometers just to reach the village school. He continues the story by retracing the 90s, the period before the war and his memories related to the important events surrounding the foundation of the Democratic League of Kosovo.

As a result of the war in Kosovo, Ramë Manaj lost his son Ylli and his younger brother Ismajli. He narrates the vicissitudes from the point of view of a family member of the forcibly disappeared and the unimaginable difficulties to discover the truth, being himself a participant and witness of the trials and commissions for the forcibly disappeared persons as a result of the war.

Svetlana talks about her personal stance on the notion of belonging. What constitutes a community, displacement, experiences of loss and grief. She tried to open a discussion on the different forms of systemic/political violence that occur in our daily lives (in our families and in other institutions). All those who are different and/or who do not conform to the prevailing social norms and values experience some form of political violence.In dark times, these types of policies often lead to more serious forms of harm, such as expulsion, suspension or death. Finally, she recounted the events leading up to the tragic summer of 1999, when her grandparents Ljubica and Jovan Lazarević were first abducted from their apartment in Gjakova, and then killed (Svetlana's grandmother is still officially listed as a missing person).

Kosovo Memory Book
The Kosovo Memory Book is a monument to the victims of war crimes, soldiers and those who were forcibly disappeared in Kosovo during 1998 -2000

Ju mund të shkarkoni listën e të vrarëve, zhdukurve dhe të rënëve 1998 – 2000 këtu: http://www.liberkujtimiikosoves.org/db/kkp_sq/index.html

This monument is alive yet indestructible. It calls everyone to pause in front of it, to read each name and  find out who these people were and how they died. It urges people to remember people. In time, when the data  on the fate of those who are still missing are finally obtained, with  information about secret mass graves and new evidence of  crimes and victims, the Kosovo Memory Book  will have become the most reliable witness to our recent past. The researchers and historians of the war crimes were given factual material from several independent sources, which they could check by names, locations and events. For the first time in the history of the Balkans,  figures are replaced with names. This will prevent manipulation, minimization or exaggeration. Each story in the book corresponds to the life of the person it refers to.

ONCE UPON A TIME AND NEVER AGAIN

1024 children killed

109 children missing

Once upon a time, is a normal beginning of every fairy tale. In this case it is the beginning of a war story. A world that is revealed to us, through the innocent eyes of children, is a world that similar to a fairy tale should never belong to reality. 


This exhibition was done together with the family members and it expresses their wish to remember these children through the remaining objects of an interrupted childhood.

visit the Virtual Tour
War Stories

More than 13,500 people were killed and / or disappeared as a result of the war in Kosovo. Thousands of stories of disaster and terror occurred throughout Kosovo, many of them untold. Statements by eyewitnesses and family members of victims, court documents and other sources of information are transformed into animated short stories in honor of victims and their families and for the purpose of remembering the past. The animations narrate the day when specific murders and enforced disappearances took place. Through these stories we can get to know the families and what they experienced in their most difficult moments, when their lives and the lives of their loved ones ended in the blink of an eye.

videos

Bala Case (Subtitles)

Goden Case (Subtitles)

The case of two Professors (Subtitles)

Panda Case (Subtitles)

Rogova Case (Subtitles)

Sylmetaj Case (Subtitles)

Marking Crime Sites
ICTY: The Kosovo Case 1998-1999
How the Crimes in Kosovo Were Investigated, Reconstructed and Prosecuted

The political crisis that had been developing in Kosovo from the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s culminated in an armed conflict between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia and the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, from mid-1998. During that conflict there were incidents where excessive and indiscriminate force was used by the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and Serbian Police units of the Ministry of the Interior (MUP), resulting in civilian deaths, population displacement and damage to civilian property. Despite efforts to bring the crisis to an end, which included sending an international verification mission to Kosovo, the conflict continued through to and beyond 24 March 1999, when NATO forces launched an air campaign against targets in the FRY. The bombing campaign ended on 10 June 1999, followed by the withdrawal of FRY and Serbian forces from Kosovo.

PROLOGUE

A Crime That Was Waiting to Happen

INVESTIGATION

The Delayed Crime Scene Investigation

THE PATTERN OF CRIMES

The Last Exodus of the 20th Century

MASS MURDERS

Those Who Survived Kosovo Killing Fields

HIDING THE EVIDENCE

No Corpse – No Crime

JUDICIAL EPILOGUE 1

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

OBSTRUCTING THE INVESTIGATION

Too Many Obstacles, Too Little Evidence

THE MISSING LINK

A Chain of Command without Commanders

JUDICIAL EPILOGUE 1

Reasonable Doubt

Education

Due to the importance of youth everywhere and because it contains the majority of the population in our country, HLC Kosovo is focused on raising their awareness in dealing with the past. Today, the official teaching material in Kosovo ignores many facts about war crimes committed in Kosovo and disseminates partial and one-sided information. Therefore, since 2011 we help as many university and high school students to be informed about the principles of transitional justice, clarifying the importance of implementing transitional justice mechanisms such as prosecution, reparations, institutional reforms and commissions of truth.

Lectures and Workshops

The new generations at school or university do not learn about the war in Kosovo or how we should deal with its consequences today as a society. With the permission of the Ministry of Education, FDHK has held hundreds of lectures and workshops throughout Kosovo, for all communities, schools and universities on dealing with the past and Transitional Justice.

To better understand the topic, the four pillars of transitional justice hold the focus in the case of Kosovo. During one day, participants have the opportunity to learn from our experience about the most accurate statistics on all persons missing as a result of the war in Kosovo, on the procedures and data of war crimes trials related to crimes committed in Kosovo, the forms and ways of reparations and the importance of institutional reforms.

As not everything can be elaborated within a day, at the end of each lecture or workshop, information material such as the Transitional Justice (high school) brochure or the Transitional Justice Handbook is distributed to students to learn more about the topic.

Summer School

The summer school brings together young people from all communities in Kosovo to learn more about Transitional Justice and dealing with the past.

In this 5-day school, participants have the opportunity to hear from lecturers from Kosovo and the region on the four pillars of Transitional Justice (Right to Justice, Right to Know, Reparations and Institutional Reforms).
In addition, participants also have the opportunity to visit crime scenes and meet survivors and understand the importance that the past has for our common future.

The various participants in the summer schools on Transitional Justice, have continued their engagement in this topic by becoming human rights activists in various organizations and institutions.

Internships

In mid-2011, the HLC began the practice of hiring final year students or young law graduates to monitor war crimes trials as volunteers.

Volunteers, as part of their project responsibilities, monitor court hearings, prepare daily reports on the trials they have observed, participate in professional discussions about the trials observed, present their observations on trials and the performance of court officials, prepare seminar papers or essays on the topic of war crimes, which they present to a whole group of students engaged in this project.

Since 2011, over ninety students have done internships in this project. Many students who have volunteered for the HLC are today successful prosecutors, judges, lawyers; they are engaged in judicial and state institutions or make a significant contribution through civil society

Reconciliation

Achieving a common version of history through truth-seeking processes, a shared memory of the past, is essential to reconciliation and moving forward. Due to the regional character of the wars in the former Yugoslavia, including the conflict in Kosovo, as well as the movement of victims and perpetrators throughout the region, regional cooperation should be one of the essential elements, therefore HLC Kosovo continues to be dedicated to supporting RECOM to establish a regional consensus based on past facts as well as advancing the reconciliation process between different communities and between states.

Reconciliation can take place at the individual, interpersonal, socio-political and institutional levels and aims to restore dignity, reverse the structural causes of marginalization and discrimination and return victims to the position of bearer of rights and freedoms.

Kosovo Coalition for Reconciliation

DEALING WITH

visit KCR website https://kcr-ks.org

The set of actions under specific objective “Dealing with the past” will target relevant Kosovo institutions and governmental bodies demanding development of ethnic-sensitive and victim-sensitive national strategies and policies dealing with transitional justice and reconciliation process in Kosovo. Only once national legislative framework and governmental bodies/institutions, sensitively and justly address the need of all Kosovo communities, victims of past atrocities of all ethnic backgrounds, the governmental enactments will become a factor contributing to the reconciliation in Kosovo. The proposed intervention aims to offer the government those information and insights that prerequisite responsible and ethnic sensitive governmental enactments in the process of dealing with the past and reconciliation.  

The set of actions under specific objective “Dealing with the present” aims to assure active involvement of grass-root community (women, youth) and professional groups (journalists) in efforts that address currently dominating and conflict-fuelling ethnic misperceptions. This will be achieving through structural efforts in labelling/addressing ethnic stereotypes, promotion of cultural diversity as well promotion of ethnic-sensitive and affirmative public discourse (through media involvement). Cumulatively these actions will increase understanding and sensitiveness of community actors to the interests, views and needs presented in other ethnic groups in Kosovo stripping down the conflictual ethnic misconceptions and barriers.

These set of actions tackles the growing conflict drivers, i.e. those deficiencies/beliefs in Kosovo that are growing as the time passes by, reducing the capacity and willingness of Kosovo ethnic groups to engage in reconciling dynamics. Such an investment in future of Kosovo will tackle language differences, pioneer the Cultural Diversity Day in Kosovo and involve emerging youth leaders of various ethnic backgrounds in promoting these values. This will enable beneficiaries, especially the youth groups in Kosovo to gain a better insight in shared cultural values, gain a new perspective of history of ethnic conflict in Kosovo (deprived of nationalistic and populistic misconceptions) as well as set the groundwork and awareness of needs for institutional response to language barrier in Kosovo. All the listed factors are essential to future of ethnic coexistence in Kosovo.

RECOM
RECOM is a regional commission to establish the facts of war crimes and other serious human rights violations committed in the former Yugoslavia from 1 January 1991 to 31 December 2001.

The Coalition for RECOM is a network of civil society organizations (CSOs) from post-Yugoslav countries which advocate for the establishment of RECOM – the Regional Commission Tasked with Establishing the Facts about All Victims of War Crimes and Other Serious Human Rights Violations Committed on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia from 1 January 1991 to 31 December 2001.

The Coalition for RECOM was formed on 28 October 2008 in Pristina, Kosovo, within the Fourth Forum for Transitional Justice in post-Yugoslav Countries, by the decision of the 100 organizations and associations that took part in the forum – NGOs dealing with human rights, youth organizations, associations of families of missing persons and associations of former detainees. Since then, the Coalition for RECOM has brought together 2,050 non-governmental organizations dealing with human rights, associations of detainees, refugee associations, associations of families of missing persons, artists, writers, lawyers and other prominent intellectuals – all of them advocates of the idea that countries formed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia should create a Regional Commission with the task of establishing the facts about what happened in the recent past.

The Coalition for RECOM is managed by the Assembly of the Coalition members. Technical and expert support to the Coalition is provided by the Regional Council, which consists of the initiators of the RECOM Initiative, Nataša Kandić and Vesna Teršelić, and representatives of CSOs participating in the RECOM Project. The RECOM Project is managed by Nataša Kandić. The Regional Council is also responsible for the implementation of the conclusions of the Assembly of the Coalition for RECOM. The Public Advocates responsible for political advocacy are: Professor Žarko Puhovski PhD (Croatia), Professor Zdravko Grebo PhD (BiH), Židas Daskalovski PhD (Macedonia), the journalists Adriatik Kelmendi (Kosovo), Dženana Karup Druško (BiH), Dinko Gruhonjić (Serbia) and Duško Vuković (Montenegro), Dino Mustafić (theatre director), and Nataša Kandić (human rights activist).

Visit RECOM website http://www.recom.link/

Documentation Centre Kosovo

The data collected over the years from courts, publications and research are presented in the form of exhibitions, documentaries, lectures and debates in order to inform the public about the facts of the war in Kosovo and to create a new comprehensive space for the creation of collective memory

VISIT OUR PUBLIC SPACE

DCK