A judge for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Fausto Pocar, said in Zagreb on Monday that once the ICTY closed its doors, war crimes prosecution would remain a priority task of national judiciaries which he said had already shown that they were capable of prosecuting crimes committed in the 1990s wars.
Addressing a conference of judges from the countries in the region, which was taking place in Zagreb's Palace Hotel, Pocar said that regional judiciaries had proven that they were impartial and functioning, and that war crimes prosecution would continue after the dissolution of the ICTY.
He noted that all appeals proceedings at the ICTY should be completed by the end of 2014.
Some 20 judges from the countries in the region and the ICTY were taking part in the conference on the prosecution of war crimes, which is part of the "War Crimes Justice Project", launched by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and funded by the European Union.
An advisor with the European Union Delegation to Croatia, Paolo Berizzi, said that the policy chapter Judiciary and Fundamental Rights was one of the most important areas in in Croatia's EU entry talks, stressing that the EU expected concrete results.
The EU wants to see the investigation and prosecution of perpetrators of war crimes, the revision of verdicts handed down in the absence of defendants, and regional cooperation in this area, said Berizzi, adding that this was not only a job for the government but for the authorities, judiciary and society in general.
The conference was also attended by Croatian Supreme Court President Branko Hrvatin.
The 4-million-euro War Crimes Justice Project is being implemented by the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the ICTY, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), and OSCE field operations in the region.
