Students Spend a week in the Balkan for their Annual Study Trip

At the University of Belgrade, students exchanged with Milos Hrnjaz – Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences and President of the Executive Board of Belgrade International Law Circle – and Janja Simentić Popović – Assistant Professor at Faculty of Political Science – on how a post-conflict society like Serbiadeals with IHL and transitional justice.

They notably discussed the role of an IHL professor in a post-conflict society, how to classify armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia where classification of conflicts is part of the founding national myths of new states, as well as about war crimes in a society still overwhelmed with emotions.

In Srebrenica, Geneva Academy students participated in the first day of the 2022 Srebrenica Youth School, organized by the Post-Conflict Research Center – directed by our MTJ alumna Tatjana Milovanović – and the Srebrenica Memorial Center .

This week-long educational event for youth activists, artists, and students from the Western Balkans and from all around the world aims – via a series of masterclasses, keynote speeches, and workshops – to contribute to learning and critical thinking around the subjects of dealing with the past, transitional justice, and prevention of genocides and mass atrocities.

During this day, students notably visited the Srebrenica Memorial Center and Museum and discussed with the Museum Director and our MTJ alumna Tatjana Milovanović and her colleagues at the Post Conflict Research Center about genocide, genocide denial, recognition, memorialization, psychosocial consequences, trauma, and more.

During the trip, students also visited the first International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Information Centre, located in the City Hall of Sarajevo, which provides digital access to electronic copies of all ICTY’s public records and archive material. Expert Advisor at the ICTY Information Centre, Ismena Čaušević explained them the mandate of the center, showed the ICTY courtroom No. 2 and exchanged with students around ICTY case law and the role of this ad-hoc tribunal.