Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights - YUCOM
The Lawyers Committee For Human Rights
The Lawyers Committee For Human Rights (YUCOM) was founded in 1997 as an expert, voluntary, non-governmental organization whose members are legal experts engaged in promoting the idea of the rule of law and uphold of human rights, raising public awareness, rendering legal assistance to victims of human rights violation, as well as developing co-operation with national and international organizations involved in human rights protection and promotion.
YUCOM?s activities are generally focused on legal expert work, including strategic litigation on local and European level, expert work in the field of transitional justice (monitoring of procedures in front of the Special Court for War Crimes and Organized Crime in Belgrade), expert and public debates, drafting model laws (such as YUCOM?s Amnesty Law draft proposal adopted in 2000 and Declaration on genocide in Srebrenica), and monitoring of implementation of laws(Freedom of Information Act in Serbia), as well as involvement in the process to confront criminalized past, aimed at strengthening of institutions, rule of law and democratization. YUCOM is engaged in legal media issues and leading campaign for the Opening of Secret Police Files and civil control of police and military.
YUCOM maintains an excellent co-operation with various organizations, locally and aboard (the last prominent one being the work within coalition of 8 leading national human rights NGOs on problems of confronting the past and the Coalition for Tolerance Contra Hate Crime that YUCOM founded in 2007), and with international organizations (OSCE, Council of Europe), and maintains contacts with governmental bodies interested in the process of reform and pursuing the rule of law (Newly formed Ombudsperson office, Commissioner for free access to information and various expert teams involved in legislative and overall society reforms). YUCOM also won cases before European Court of Human Rights (VAM vs. Serbia and Mikuljanac, Malisic vs. Serbia) and UN Committee for Human Rights (Bodrozic case).
YUCOM is rendering legal assistance to victim of human rights violations, amongst all to victims of trafficking in human beings. Moreover YUCOM has published Manual on practical use of international standards (such as trafficking in human beings, torture etc.) which purpose is to educate NGO?s in the field of rendering legal assistance to Governmental bodies in cases of human rights violations.
Svetogorska 17, 1000
Web: www.yucom.org.yu E-mail: yucomoffice@gmail.com