FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 7, 2002
Video Archive of Milosevic War Crimes Trial Now on Internet
Bard College and the International Center for Transitional Justice Launch Complete On-Demand Web Video Archive of Historic Trial
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. -- The Human Rights Project at Bard College, in collaboration with the New York-based International
Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), has created a complete video archive of the landmark war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic,
accessible on the Internet through an ordinary web browser.
As the dramatic case of the former Yugoslav President -- the first head-of-state to face an international trial for crimes against
humanity and genocide -- unfolds at the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (Netherlands),
the archived on-line broadcast will bring the proceedings daily to thousands of viewers worldwide. The trial, which began on
Tuesday, February 12, is the most significant war crimes case in Europe since the Nazi prosecutions at Nuremberg.
The trial archive is meant to open it to the many potential viewers eager to follow the historic proceedings but living in different
time zones. An integral video archive of each day's events, with audio in English, is available at Bard's site on the World Wide
Web as soon as the daily court session is complete.
"These proceedings promise to become, in effect, a public history lesson on the catastrophe that engulfed Yugoslavia, and the rest
of us, in the 1990s," said Thomas Keenan, director of Bard's Human Rights Project. "There is enormous interest in this trial
around the world. Now researchers, journalists, and especially Bosnians, Serbs, Croats and Albanians living around the world, can
watch and listen to the complete trial on the Internet, virtually in real-time."
The Milosevic trial archive can be viewed at hague.bard.edu.
The initiative -- funded by The Glaser Progress Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and The
Rockefeller Brothers Fund -- will also create a permanent physical archive of high quality digital video at Bard for the use of
researchers, including broadcast and print journalists, filmmakers, scholars and students.
"The South African experience taught us the importance of public outreach in the pursuit of any meaningful effort to achieve justice
and accountability," said Alex Boraine, President of the International Center for Transitional Justice and the former Deputy Chair
of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "In the former Yugoslavia, we realized very quickly that one of the best
contributions we could make to the region was to help bring these historic proceedings to those who would eventually be the catalysts
for peace and reconciliation in their countries."
The trial webcast is designed to reach viewers in time zones outside of Western Europe with a video feed accessible shortly after
the conclusion of each day's proceedings, at around 10:00 am EST. The site features an archive of the audio and video of all
previous sessions of the trial, in addition to transcripts of each day's proceedings, as they become available. As the trial
progresses, the site will gather news accounts, documents, and a wide range of Internet-based references on the trial and the
issues it raises.
The Bard site will also soon add a complete archive of the trial in Shqip (Albanian). The Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian archive is on-line
at tribunal.freeserbia.org. Live webcasts are at
www.domovina.net/Icty/eng/room1.asp
Bard and the ICTJ are creating the on-line and digital video archive in cooperation with Domovina Net (Amsterdam), the SENSE News
Agency (Brussels), the Coalition for International Justice (Washington DC and The Hague), Bowery Productions and AT Media (New York).
Since its creation in 1999, the Human Rights Project at Bard College has developed innovative courses, supported student initiatives
and internships, and conducted a program of lectures, films, and seminars featuring human rights activists and scholars, emerging
media analysts, artists, and writers from across the world. A key component of the program focuses on how advances in information
technology have affected the struggle for human rights by changing the way people across the globe communicate and the way in which
global events are viewed.
The International Center for Transitional Justice was founded last year by Alex Boraine and has been working in several former
Yugoslav republics to promote accountability through the combination of trials, truth commissions and civil society initiatives.
The organization, which works in over 15 countries emerging from armed conflict or repressive rule, advises governmental and
non-governmental actors on strategies to address the legacy of past human rights abuse.
For more information on the Milosevic trial archive and the Bard Human Rights Project log onto www.bard.edu/hrp. For
information about the International Center for Transitional Justice, see www.ictj.org.
Contact: Mark Primoff, Bard
(845) 758-7412
primoff@bard.edu
Karmen Jelincic, ICTJ
(917) 438-9327
kjelincic@ictj.org
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