Dragan Prelević
Lawyer from Podgorica.
I attended the Belgrade Centre School of Human Rights as a trainee lawyer in 1996 at the time of the fiercest student protests against Milosević’s regime. I remember the School for the touching friendships that developed and persisted among participants and for the impression made by the systematic approach to the protection of human dignity through the system of human rights and for the lecturers who gave it their all. Prof Kosta Obradović advised on the nuances and secrets of the negotiation of international treaties on humanitarian law and attorney Ivan Janković on how to cope with the monitoring and interception of the secret police. The School marked a turning point in my professional work as well. I later successfully applied knowledge, especially of the international system of human rights protection, in several important cases to protect victims of serious human rights violations (torture and persecution of Roma, trafficking, compensation for victims of war crimes). In addition, the School contributed to the development of awareness of the need for active citizenship and to the establishment of Human Rights Action, which is today the most prominent non-governmental organization for the protection of human rights in Montenegro.
