‘Wouldn’t it be better if our leaders, big and small, were forced to sit at the dock instead of the negotiation table? If we could, with the help of global experts in international law, prepare a small, modest Nuremberg trial for them — a trial held not after, but rather instead of everything that might soon befall us?’[1]
Critical reflection on the wars of the 1990s continued at the SENSE Center with a seminar for history teachers, where participants examined teaching methods for responsibly and critically addressing complex topics in contemporary history—such as the experiences of soldiers and the impact of wartime propaganda.
Collections of reports from ICTY trials of the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army Ratko Mladić, and of the three Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina, Ivan Čermak, and Mladen Markač make the content of new publications in the SENSE's PDF edition "The Hague Notebooks".
History teachers from six countries in the region gathered at the SENSE Center in Pula for a seminar where they exchanged experiences on using the SENSE archive in history teaching. Seminar also offered an opportunity for teachers to summarise impressions on utilising SENSE materials which had been discussing in SENSE webinars over the last two years.
SENSE - Center for Transitional Justice started a PDF edition titled The Hague Notebooks, which provides a clear and concise insight into the entire legal process of ICTY cases through chronologically arranged SENSE reports - from the pre-trial phase, through the presentation of evidence, to verdicts.
The new SENSE Center's interactive narrative Last Tango in The Hague-A contribution to the chronology of the breakup of Yugoslavia is composed of excerpts from the trial of Slobodan Milošević related to the events before and after the Yugoslavian federation fell apart. Milosevic's self-representation in the proceedings before the ICTY allowed him to directly address the witnesses who were called to testify. In this narrative, close encounters between the accused and some witnesses are shown.
The webinars for history teachers held in December 2023, organized by the SENSE Center for Transitional Justice and the Croatian Association of History Teachers (HUNP), brought together history teachers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia to exchange experiences on the SENSE Center production as a supplement to the "Handbook for History Educators" (Handbook) of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) Information Program.
The former chief of the State Security of Serbia Jovica Stanišić and his senior intelligence officer Franko Simatović were found guilty of participating in a joint criminal enterprise to forcibly and permanently remove the non-Serb population from parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in 1992 - 1995, and were sentenced to 15 years in prison each.
SENSE - Center for Transitional Justice in collaboration with the Croatian History Teachers' Association (HUNP) held a fourth webinar in the "De-weaponizing History" series in which teachers from the countries of the region shared their experiences and teaching methods on the topics of children affected by war and the destruction of cultural heritage.