Donor: German Embassy in Belgrade

Duration of project: December 2009 – December 2010

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has been publishing in Serbian and in English its Annual Reports on the human rights situation in the country since 1998 with the aim to offer a comprehensive analysis of the human rights situation both in legislation and in practice in order to present accurate conditions of the human rights enjoyment in the country. The intention of the Centre is to examine all the aspects in which human rights were manifested, regulated and enjoyed, restricted or violated in 2009 and to describe the circumstances which influence the true enjoyment of human rights in the country. The Annual Human Rights Reports are still the only comprehensive human rights reports in Serbia. (more…)

Donor: Open Society Fund, British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), Westminster Foundation, OEBS, Council of Europe

Duration of project: Jun 2009 – Jun 2010

This project is the latest stage of a long-term Programme launched in 1999, one of the longest and most prominent forms of partnership cooperation on rule of law in Serbia, boasting a lot of support and influence. The Programme has played an important role in Serbia’s rapprochement to the EU. The implementation of the project, entitled “Serbia’s EU Integration: Implementing Priorities of European Partnership with Serbia in the Field of Judicial Reform”, began in June 2009 and will last until June 2010. The project is a logical continuation of the above-mentioned long-term Programme. (more…)

Donor: Spanish Agency for International Development cooperation – AECID

Duration of project: 30 January 2009 – 4 June 2010

This project represents a continuation of the BCHR’s long-standing efforts and programmes aimed at helping Serbia’s transition into an open democratic society based on the rule of law, human rights and other values EU membership entails. The project target group comprises high school students in Serbia (age 16-17) and their teachers in order to present them relevant information on democracy, tolerance and EU and overcome general lack of awareness of what rule of law, democratisation and EU membership entails. Join in has been designed as a multi-disciplinary and interactive project, not only in terms of the methodology of transmitting information, but also in terms of the subsequent involvement of the seminar participants in raising the knowledge of others about the issues covered by seminars. (more…)

Donor: The Balkan Trust for Democracy
Duration of the project: September 2008 – October 2009

This project was linked to the endeavors of the Belgrade Centre aiming at re-training of judges and other legal professionals in Serbia and the region, which is one of the main activities of the Centre and prerequisite for establishing the rule of law in the country. The quality of the Court’s judgments, however, depends not only on the abilities of the judges of the Court, but also on the professional legal staff which assists them in their work. The legal officers working in the Court provide the backbone of its operation, as they review each case submitted to the Court before it comes to the judges, and as they assist the judges in legal research and the drafting of all of the Court’s judgments and orders. (more…)

Donor: Norwegian People’s Aid NPA

Duration of the project: June 2008 – March 2009

This was the last stage of the project that was conducted from 2002 in cooperation with Legalis – The Association for the advancement of justice based on the principles of human rights from Croatia, The Human Rights Centre of the University in Sarajevo from Bosnia and Herzegovina, FORUM – Centre for Strategic Research and Documentation, from Macedonia and Human Rights Action, from Montenegro. In this stage 150 legal professionals (judges, lawyers, prosecutors) and human rights activists had been trained in  international human rights standards. At the same time this was good opportunity for human rights experts from SEE and Norway to exchange competence and best practices. Supreme and Constitutional Courts’ Judges from Norway and SEE meet in order to improve implementation of European Court for Human Rights decisions. (more…)

Donor: Network of European Foundation

Duration of the project: September 2008 – February 2009

The main objective of this project was to research the national environmental legislation framework, to compare it with European standards (Acquis Communitaire) and to make the assessment of the coherence (mutual compliance) of the Serbian standards and work of the state bodies implementing the valid legislation regulating environmental issues. In 2008 authorities in Serbia had been working on the national strategy for environmental protection with which all strategies related to individual issues would be harmonized. On the other hand it was important to define strategic goals in the environmental field, to harmonize legislation with international standards and to elaborate programs and actions plans for their implementation in different environmental fields. (more…)