The final university lecture of the Youth Outreach project in 2015 was organised in cooperation with International University of Novi Pazar, Serbia. Lada Šoljan, Trial Attorney from the ICTY’s Office of the Prosecutor gave a lecture via Skype on the topic “ICTY achievements and lessons learnt in adjudicating wartime sexual violence” for a group of 34 law students.
Lada informed the students about the wider context of sexual violence throughout the history of warfare and its place in the jurisprudence of courts before the establishment of the ICTY. Furthermore, she explained the definition of sexual violence in wartime, as well as provisions in the ICTY Statute and Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and how the definition evolved over time. Lada also mentioned the judgements and decisions the ICTY has made in relation to this issue. She went on to explain in detail the relevant ICTY cases, including Mucić et al, Kunarac et al, Šainović et al., and Đorđević and the findings the court has made in relation to each of them.
The students were interested in the protective measures granted to victims of sexual violence who come to testify before the court and were surprised to find that the first cases before the ICTY which dealt with sexual violence were those in which the victims were men.
At the end of the lecture the students thanked Lada and invited her to visit Novi Pazar to hold a similar lecture in person.