Humanitarian Law Perspectives seminar - 29 May

12/05/2008

“In July 1995… [D]espite a UN Security Council resolution declaring that the [UN ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina], was to be ‘free from armed attack or any other hostile act’, units of the Bosnian Serb Army launched an attack and captured the town. Within a few days, approximately 25,000 Bosnian Muslims, most of them women, children and elderly people who were living in the area, were uprooted and, in an atmosphere of terror, loaded onto overcrowded buses by the Bosnian Serb forces and transported across the confrontation lines into Bosnian Muslim-held territory. The military-aged Bosnian Muslim men of Srebrenica, however, were consigned to a separate fate. As thousands of them attempted to flee the area, they were taken prisoner, detained in brutal conditions and then executed. More than 7,000 people were never seen again.” (Krstic, IT-98-33-T, Judgment, 2 August 2001, para. 1)

The tragic events and abuses of international humanitarian law (‘IHL’) committed during the Bosnian War have been well documented, yet justice in many instances has not been achieved.� On 26 February 2007, the ICJ handed down judgment in the anticipated case of Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro).� The ICJ held that Serbia had failed to prevent the foreseeable genocide at Srebrenica, and furthermore failed to punish the perpetrators by surrendering them to the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.� This case resulted in the first judicial finding that a state was responsible for failing to prevent and punish genocide.

On 29 May 2008, Australian Red Cross, with the support of Mallesons Stephen Jaques, is presenting the Humanitarian Law Perspectives ("HLP") seminar.� This seminar will focus on the ICJ’s decision in what has become known as ‘the Genocide Case.’� Magda Karagiannakis will present the seminar. Ms Karagiannakis is a Barrister and was counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Genocide case before the International Court of Justice.� She has been counsel in proceedings before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and has also acted as a senior legal advisor and investigator to the UN Inquiry into the assassination of the Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Thursday 29 May 2008.� 6pm for 6:30pm start Assembly Hall, The Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, 173 - 175 Phillip Street, Sydney The seminar is free, but bookings are essential.�

Please RSVP to Branka Gajic at the Australian Red Cross: bgajic@redcross.org.au or (02) 9229 4294

13 May 2008