trained to be excellent trial monitors, hiring such individuals should be the exception, not the rule. When hiring, the programme should ensure that a qualified candidate has no conflict that would compromise monitoring, such as also practicing in a court or before a judge that will be monitored. Pre-existing relationships with legal actors or court personnel must also be addressed. While some familiarity with court personnel or legal actors is often helpful to obtain access, a monitor should not have a special relationship that would compromise their independence. Where project programmes engage lawyers associated with NGOs that have done specific advocacy in the past, the interview process should investigate the nature of the advocacy to determine whether the candidate will be perceived as sufficiently independent with regard to the focus of the monitoring programme. Since having to replace a monitor may often mean lack of coverage for a particular jurisdiction or court, a thorough hiring process is necessary to ensure the requisite maturity, disposition, and skill set. Therefore, the recruitment process should include not only a face-to-face interview, but, given the importance of reporting, the collection of a writing sample or administration of a written exercise should also be considered. 4.4.3 Contract obligations For project programmes involving contracted monitors, the contract is essential to clarifying mutual obligations and providing terms of reference for both the programme and each individual. At a minimum, contracts should include the following items: the name of the project and duration (contract period); the timing, terms, and conditions of payment; the obligations of the monitor to adhere to all programme requirements and guidelines, including a code of conduct; and the status of monitors as independent contractors and not employees or officers of the organization. In drafting the contract, it is not necessary that a contract itself contain all programme guidelines. Instead, the contract may specify that the monitor has received copies of all applicable programme materials and instructions, and accepts all duties and responsibilities as the terms of engagement. 4.4.4 Nationality of monitors In the OSCE, trial-monitoring was initially conducted exclusively by international monitors (monitors with citizenship other than that of the host state). Today, however, national monitors conduct the vast majority of all trial-monitoring performed by the OSCE. Currently, national staff perform almost all criminal justice trial-monitoring in the field operations in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Serbia, and war-crimes monitoring in Croatia is done in part by national staff. National monitors also staff the project programmes in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan. Project programmes currently being organized in Montenegro, Georgia, and Azerbaijan also anticipate the use of national staff. As a result, today within the OSCE context the decision to engage in trial-monitoring presupposes the decision to employ or engage national monitors. The reasons for this shift are varied. First, as ethnic tensions have reduced in the Balkans, the trend in the OSCE field operations in South-Eastern Europe has been to Trial-Monitoring: A Reference Manual for Practitioners 51