East - East Partnership Beyond Borders Program: Croatia

Vision of the Human Rights Center for the year 2009
Program Coordinator: Maja Hasanbašić


Zagreb, December 23, 2008


This is the third year in which the Human Rights Center will continue with implementing  Institutional partnership for the East – East: Partnership Beyond Borders Program in Croatia.
Up to now, four projects have been implemented, one project in the year 2007 and three in the 2008. Two projects were related to the right on healthy environment and sustainable development, while other two dealt with the EU accession process and its' impact on human rights.

Center's vision for the year 2009 follows the main idea from previous visions, and that is a human rights based approach when dealing with different themes of common good. Furthermore, our vision is trying to adopt a long-term persepctive to concrete themes which are actual at the national level, but also have an added value while being elaborated within the East-East region. Finaly, our aim is to develop international cooperation with CSOs and other organizations over those issues and processes in which Center has participated at the national level.

Following themes are included in the vision for the year 2009:


1)    Dealing with the Past

Dealing with the past has become a core human rights issue in Croatia as the direct consequence of the war that was going in 90s'. As each war has its' own numerous traumatic epxeriences, stories and situations, the last war left a lot of trauma and unrevelaed facts about war victims, war criminals and war survivals as a burden to newly established post war societies in countries of ex Yugoslavia.
Human Rights Center has been organizing “NGO forums on war crimes” from its' early days of foundation in 2003. Those NGO forums served as the neutral and in that times only place where NGOs were able to discuss war crime trials, NGO monitoring reports together with other potential monitoring mechanisms, mechanisms of support to victims, functioning of national institutions when dealing with war crimes, etc. In October 2008, at the Fourth Regional Forum for Transitional Justice, a Coalition for the support to foundation of the Regional Commission for Defining Facts about War Crimes and Other Serious Human Rights Violations in the Recent Past (REKOM) has been established.
Center strongly supports work of the Coalition for REKOM, as well as the process of dealing with the past. In that regard, our plan is to organize an international conference and a course for students and judges about the legacy of the ICTY in partnership with the Faculty of Law in Zagreb.


2) Human Rights and Environment Protection

Center' s aim is to continue with promoting the idea of human rights based aproach to the issues related to protection of environment and ecology in general. Projects that were carried out in 2007 and 2008 established a solid base for joint regional/international cooperation in the future around various subthemes.
Cooperation has been reinforced at the national level among Center and our partner – Heinrich Boll Foundation-Office in Zagreb, our associate NGO Eko Kvarner and our new associate, an NGO – Green Action. This cooperation has been strengthened at the strategic planning meeting that took place in October 2008, with the support of the East East Program. Furthermore, there is a solid base for cooperation with the Open Society Institute in Bosnia and Herzegovina, since their representatives announced a meeting with the HRC in the beginning of 2009. Also, the East East Coordinator from Croatia as well as HRC's partners participated in two events that were organized by the OSI Bosnia and Herzegovina last year.
Our focus when dealing with ecological issues in the year 2009 will be more comprehensive, and not directly related to energy projects. In our up to now work, experience has lead us to a more extended scale of existing needs on the ground that should be discussed as well. For example, in the context of the EU accession process of Croatia, new laws and strategies should be brought in 2009 and a very concrete one is the Strategy of Sustainable Development. HRC agreed with its partners and associates at the strategic meeting that experiences from Serbia and Montenegro, who already have qualitative strategies of sustainable development should be exchanged in the beginning of 2009.


3) EU and Human Rights

Year 2009 will be a very important and hectic year for Croatia, since around one third of negotiation chapters should be opened and majority of them closed in a short period of time, untransparently and mostly without participation of the civil society.
HRC will continue to monitor this process, as well as the implementaion of concrete laws that were brought in the light of it, which have significant human rights dimension; anti sicrimination law and free legal aid law. Experiences of countries from the region regarding those two particular laws in the context of the EU have already been discussed and exchanged within Center's East East projects “EU and Human Rights” that were carried out in the year 2008. First was the pilot project focused on bilalteral exchange of experiences among Croatia and Macedonia, while the second was a regional conference, which gathered CSOs and other relevant organizations/institutions from seven countries of the South East Europe. Both meetings resulted with joint conslusions which state that participation of the CSOs in this processes is inevitable and needed, and that futher exchange of experiences among countries in the South East Europe over following concrete human rights issues is needed: anitdiscirmination law, free legal aid, asylum policy and protection of environment.


4) Education in/for Human Rights and Civic Education

An education in/for human right will remain as one of the theme within the vison for the year 2009 as well. Eventhough no significant improvements happened in Croatia in this field yet, (there is still no systematic and obligatory anti-bias education about human rights and/or Civic Education incorporated into the offcial curricula), some steps are planned to be taken by the Croatian Governemntal institutions - an official working group with participation of the civil soceity representatives should be established in the year 2009. 
Croatian civil society organizations have great experience and knowledge in in-formal education about anti discrimination, human rights, non-violence and other related themes.  In that regard, Center is conducting a research “Human Rights in Primary Schools: Theroy and Practice” in cooperation with prominent Croatian experts from the civil society. Findings of that research we see as the solid base for an exchange within the East East Program in the future.
Another perspective within this theme, which was in the last HRC's vision, but have not been implemented yet because of several reasons is Human Rights Libraries.

a)    Human Rights Libraries
Center has signed the protocol of Exchange and Cooperation with the Human Rights Center in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in November 2008. This protocol officialy opened possibilities for concrete exchange of experiences, ideas and knoweldge between our two organizations in joint future projects. Focus of cooperation will be on improving the role of Human Rights libraries in a better understanding and defending of human rights, but also in establishing of cooperation with other Human Rights libraries in the region and worldwide.



Maja Hasanbašić
Human Rights Center
Head of Programs and Activities Department