Given the knowledge and experience of its staff, OKO provides specialized legal advice to lawyers defending cases before the Court of BiH.
The four OKO “Defense Support Teams” (DST) cover geographical areas across the country, allowing lawyers from each DST to expand their knowledge of legal issues arising from specific types of cases, gain a detailed understanding of the evidence on which the case is based, and provide advice to lawyers on any issues in each new case from that geographical area.
This institutional knowledge is supplemented by OKO legal associates, who are lawyers with experience in international criminal law. They are able to match the international expertise used by the Prosecution through its foreign prosecutors.
OKO staff conduct a legal analysis of each new case to identify key issues and the nature of the allegations against the accused. OKO then prepares legal arguments and legal memoranda on these issues to support the lawyers in the case.
OKO advises lawyers on two key areas of law.
European Convention on Human Rights: Decisions of the Court of BiH can be reviewed before the Constitutional Court and finally, before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This is the first time that the decisions of an internationalized war crimes court have been subject to review by a higher court. The Convention is directly incorporated into the BiH legislation through the Dayton Agreement, and as such, it represents the highest law in the country. There have been many instances where arguments based on Article 5 and Article 6 of the ECHR have directly pertained to the defense. OKO has several experts in ECHR law and access to leading literature to provide the highest quality advice in this complex area of law. There are not many legal regulations available in the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian language, so OKO lawyers fluent in both languages can be of real service.
International Criminal Law: The decisions of the Court of BiH will likely heavily rely on the jurisprudence that resulted from the work of the ICTY and ICTR, as well as other courts like the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The definition of crimes against humanity in the Criminal Code of BiH is identical to the definition in the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, and it is expected that the decisions of the ICC in the initial cases will have direct significance for the Court of BiH. Again, most of this law is only available in English or French, so OKO staff can conduct the necessary legal research to ensure that arguments are presented before the Court of BiH.
Eugene O’Sullivan: Member of the Canadian Bar Association. Defense counsel in the Delalić, Plavšić, and other cases at the ICTY. Member of the ICTY Rules Committee, professor at the Faculty of Law, Laurentian University, Canada.
Guénaël Mettraux: Member of the Geneva Bar Association. Defense counsel in the Halilović case at the ICTY. Previously worked as a legal associate at the ICTY chambers. Author of the book ‘International Crimes and the ad hoc Tribunals’, Oxford University Press, 2005.
Melinda Taylor: Member of the New York Bar Association. Legal consultant in defense cases before the ICTY, ICTR, and Special Court for Sierra Leone. Previously worked at the Office of Legal Aid and Detention Matters at the ICTY. Currently works at the Office of Public Counsel for the Defense at the International Criminal Court.
Richard Rogers: Member of the Bar of England and Wales and the California Bar Association. Previously worked as a legal associate at the ICTY chambers and the ICTR Appeals Chamber. Head of the Legal System Monitoring Section in the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. Currently works as a legal consultant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
Reinhold Gallmetzer: Legal officer at the International Criminal Court chambers. Previously engaged as a legal officer at the ICTY and as a judge training officer in the OSCE Mission in Kosovo.
Gillian Higgins: Member of the Rock Tansey QC Barristers’ Chambers, 25 Bedford Row, London. Specialized in criminal law and international humanitarian law. Worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Appointed as defense counsel for Slobodan Milošević at the ICTY. Lectured at several European bar associations and universities on aspects of international criminal law, and also serves as a legal consultant on the Kurdish Human Rights Project.
The “Additional Rules of Procedure” govern the work of OKO, describe the procedure for placing lawyers on the list, and also address the appointment of additional lawyers and the special admission of foreign lawyers. You can download the Additional Rules of Procedure here.
The “Memorandum of Understanding between OKO and OLAD” regulates the procedures to be followed when transferring cases from the ICTY to the Court of BiH. The purpose of the Memorandum is to ensure that case files are efficiently transferred from the previous lawyer to the new lawyer selected to represent the accused. You can download the Memorandum of Understanding here.
You can find the best sources of legal regulations on the official website of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, accessible here.