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  • ’Crime of Opinion’ is One Thing, But War Crime is Another
    Feb 10, 2005
    Press release
    On January 22, 2005, a large group of law professors, politicians, and artists gathered in Belgrade’s Sava Center to support Vojislav Seselj, indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). A number of participants repeated two legal arguments which, coming from well-known lawyers, purport to represent authoritative criticism of the tribunal. Both arguments, however, are patently false.
  • Comment: Hague Claims Flawed
    Oct 28, 2004
    Commentary
    This month, the Hague tribunal’s many opponents in Belgrade believed they had a reason to be jubilant. In the space of ten days, a former United States ambassador and a newspaper supposedly close to the current administration criticised the UN court and strongly argued in favour of trying indictees before domestic war crimes courts. Serbia’s nationalists had won an all-powerful ally in their fight against the tribunal – or so it seemed.
  • Macedonia Conflict Endangers Civilians
    May 7, 2001
    Press release
    Both the Macedonian authorities and the armed ethnic Albanians operating as a group called the National Liberation Army (NLA) must comply with basic principles of international humanitarian law applicable to internal armed conflicts.
  • Letter to Macedonian Prime Minister Ljupce Georgijevski
    May 4, 2001
    Letter
    Human Rights Watch is a privately funded international non-governmental organization dedicated to documenting human rights abuses throughout the world. In the past ten years, we have committed substantial time and effort to investigating violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia. We have documented violations of international humanitarian law by all sides of the armed conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the NATO war with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
  • Letter to Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski
    May 4, 2001
    Letter
    Human Rights Watch wants to express its concern that Macedonian authorities take all measures to ensure that security forces comply with basic principles of international humanitarian law applicable to situations of internal armed conflict, and enshrined in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. This provision protects those who do not take an active part in hostilities from the most serious violations, including acts of murder, torture and cruel treatment, the taking of hostages, outrages upon personal dignity, and the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court.