The 1978 Law of Contracts and Torts envisages the submission of a specific type of lawsuit that may be filed by one or more people when one or more people are at risk of harm. Such lawsuits have been dubbed “environmental lawsuits” in legal parlance. However, there are no records that anyone has ever filed such a lawsuit in the past 40 years. BCHR conducted a several-month research on legal protection of the environment. The handbooks to be presented later this month provide an overview of the valid framework for environmental protection and the legal instruments that citizens and organisations may apply to protect their constitutionally guaranteed right to a healthy environment. BCHR’s associate Dr Aleksa Radonjić told Vreme that the lawsuit provided for in the Law of Contracts and Torts was clearly introduced to protect the environment, although it is not called an environmental lawsuit. “Under Article 156 of the Law of Contracts and Torts, everyone may demand of others to prevent occurrence of harm or eliminate the risk of harm and take measures to prevent the occurrence of harm.” Environmental lawsuits are preventive, and the risk of harm may concern the plaintiff or an indeterminate number of people. Under the law, such laws may be filed by individuals or civic associations when there is risk of harm. Not one such lawsuit claiming harm to a larger number of people has been filed in Serbia since 1978. The courts only ruled on lawsuits filed by one person against another. The handbooks we prepared depart from the constitutional right to participate in the protection of the environment. The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights collected all the relevant information needed by those who want to resort to legal means to protect the environment need,” Radonjić added. (more…)

The ART OF INTEGRATION program brought together a group of young people who are going through an educational process on the topic of refugee inclusion in Serbian society. The group consists of young people coming from Serbia and Iran. The process itself is also inclusive, so young people from different vulnerable groups are actively involved. The program “ART OF INTEGRATION” consists of lectures, educational workshops, visits to reception centers for refugees and migrants, drama workshops and animation workshops.

So far, more than 30 workshops and lectures have been conducted. At the moment, the preparation of a play and animated film on the topic of inclusion of refugees and migrants is being prepared, on which the group of young people actively participates with all the acquired knowledge during the process. The text itself for the play came from working with this group, based on their thinking on inclusion, acceptance and interculturality.

The program is realized in cooperation with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Belgrade and the Dutch Refugee Council.

In Subotica, we participated in a two-day seminar on the situation of unaccompanied refugee children in the asylum procedure organized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We discussed the new legal solutions and existing challenges in that area with representatives of the Asylum Office, the guardianship authority, the Refugee and Migration Commissariat, and colleagues from other non-governmental organizations. On the second day of the seminar, the Belgrade Center for Human Rights presented the role of a legal representative of unaccompanied children who requested international protection in the Republic of Serbia.

The Belgrade Center for Human Rights has compiled a periodic report on the right to asylum in the Republic of Serbia that relates to the third quarter of 2018. The report includes a detailed analysis of the right to access to the asylum procedure, with special emphasis on access to the procedure at the Belgrade airport and the reception center for foreigners as well the practice of the authorities in charge of decision-making in the asylum procedure through the analysis of individual decisions.
You can download the report HERE.

Call for mentors, as well as youth organizations and youth office within the program “Inclusion Live 2.0” is open!

The main goal of the program is to improve the capacity of youth policy actors in Serbia to implement the principles of non-discrimination and equal opportunities in their policies and practices. The desire is to improve the position of young people, especially those from vulnerable groups.

The program is implemented by the Belgrade Center for Human Rights in cooperation with the three national associations – the National Association of Youth Offices, the National Association of Practitioners of Youth Work and the National Youth Council of Serebia and with the financial support of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The program is a continuation of the pilot program “Inclusion Live 1.0” which was realized in 2017.

For application form, visit our page HERE.