International Justice

International Justice

International justice—the name given to efforts to prosecute high level perpetrators of mass atrocities including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes—has undergone a renaissance since the early 1990s. The Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals of the 1940s brought individual perpetrators of World War Two atrocities to justice. After the tribunals closed, the international community made little effort to replicate these institutions for more than 40 years. But in response to the horrors in Bosnia in the early 1990s and the 100 days of slaughter in Rwanda in 1994, the international community galvanized to form two separate international war crimes tribunals to try high level perpetrators: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Since then, other more localized international justice efforts (sometimes referred to as “hybrid tribunals,” because they combine international and national elements) have emerged in places including Sierra Leone, East Timor and Cambodia. A permanent institution, the International Criminal Court, came into existence in July 2002 after 60 states ratified its statute. These efforts demonstrate a commitment on the part of the international community to ensure that individualized accountability, rather than impunity, becomes the norm in response to large scale violence.

Because international justice is such a recent phenomenon, the Justice Initiative has developed its own program to support international and hybrid tribunals around the world. Many factors will determine the success of the international and hybrid courts. Some of the most critical are: (1) the fairness and effectiveness of the investigations, prosecutions and trials; (2) the degree to which affected populations are engaged in and informed about the workings of the courts; (3) their contribution to the long-term capacity building of local justice systems and to the sense of justice felt by the victims; (4) the jurisprudence and practices emerging from these courts; (5) their impact on peace and security, the rule of law, and regional stability; and (6) the extent to which the international community supports the work of international justice mechanisms, both financially and politically.

International tribunals are often under-resourced and lack sufficient state cooperation in facilitating arrests and providing information. As a result, they must often rely on NGOs such as the Justice Initiative for additional expertise and technical assistance. The Justice Initiative has provided assistance to various arms of these courts, including the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), the registry (the administrative organ of international tribunals) the judicial chambers, and the defense. The Justice Initiative has also engaged in advocacy and public education efforts to strengthen support for international and hybrid tribunals among the UN Secretariat, the diplomatic community, the media, and the bench and bar.

Some of the key areas of focus for Justice Initiative work in this field are the following:

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

The Justice Initiative views the ECCC as the last real chance to bring some measure of justice to victims of Khmer Rouge era crimes, and thus is committed to working with Cambodian civil society, all organs of the ECCC, the United Nations, and other stakeholders to ensure that the ECCC trials are—and are seen to be—independent, legitimate, and fair. Since 2003, the Justice Initiative has maintained an on-the-ground presence in Cambodia to monitor developments, engage in advocacy and provide technical assistance to help prepare for the ECCC’s establishment. This has included a full time international court monitor in Phnom Penh tracking the court’s progress, and a resident fellow working with the Cambodian NGO, Khmer Institute for Democracy (KID), on outreach activities, providing information on the ECCC to people in the provinces and conveying their reactions and needs back to the court. The Justice Initiative has brought numerous experts from other international and hybrid tribunals to Cambodia to work with NGOs, the Government Task Force on the Khmer Rouge trials, and ECCC staff on a broad range of issues, from fund-raising to court administration and operation to interpretation and translation. The Justice Initiative has also issued a series of reports highlighting the court’s pressing needs. In both New York and Phnom Penh, the Justice Initiative has worked with the UN secretariat and UN missions to generate and sustain international engagement with the ECCC.

International Criminal Court

The Justice Initiative works closely with the International Criminal Court (ICC), helping it function as efficiently and effectively as possible. Among other activities, the Justice Initiative assists local human rights advocates in gathering and presenting information of use to the ICC, pursues advocacy and public education with governments to secure support for the ICC, and contributes to building the capacity of ICC staff on a range of issues.

International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have ceased opening new investigations, are functioning at full trial capacity, and are expected to finalize all appeals and close down in 2010. Because of this, the courts’ completion strategies have already been implemented and they have begun transferring some cases to national courts. Closing these two tribunals requires consideration of residual war crimes issues, including how to deal with indictees arrested after the courts have ceased operations, what happens when new evidence is discovered which could exonerate someone convicted by the court, how requests by persons convicted should be handled (such as requests for early release), how witness protection issues will be maintained, initiated, and/or monitored, what happens to the courts’ archives, and other judicial and non-judicial issues inherent in a criminal judicial process. The Justice Initiative is spearheading efforts to establish a Residual War Crimes Office that will take up these issues and help determine the ongoing legacy of these courts.

The Justice Initiative continues to actively engage with the ICTR on gender issues and handover, as the court transfers more cases to domestic courts in Rwanda as part of its completion strategy. With the ICTY, the Justice Initiative pursues advocacy efforts aimed at securing the arrests of accused war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic and their transfer to the ICTY, while determining how to best capitalize on the vast evidence developed against Slobodan Milosevic before his death.

Special Court for Sierra Leone

Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was arrested in early 2006, marking the capture of the court’s highest profile indictee. Security concerns within West Africa prompted the UN Security Council to transfer Taylor to The Hague, where he will be tried by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) using the International Criminal Court’s premises. The Justice Initiative is providing technical assistance to help the SCSL prepare for Taylor’s trial.

Beyond the Taylor case, the Justice Initiative undertakes assessments of the court’s operations, facilitates the court’s public outreach, enhances the quality of jurisprudence through submission of amicus briefs, and develops and implements projects to ensure that, when it concludes operations, the court leaves a positive legacy in West Africa and elsewhere.

East Timor

In 2004, representatives from the Justice Initiative and the Coalition for International Justice (CIJ) traveled to East Timor and Indonesia and co-authored the report Unfulfilled Promises: Achieving Justice for Crimes Against Humanity in East Timor. The report served as a foundation for advocacy that helped lead to the establishment of a Commission of Experts to review the justice failures in East Timor and Indonesia. The Justice Initiative has since partnered with other civil society organizations in supporting the Commission’s call for accountability for crimes committed in East Timor and Indonesia.

Other Tribunal-Related Projects

In 2006 the Justice Initiative participated in a training for Iraqi judges and prosecutors (organized by the Global Justice Center) and contributed to workshops on other potential tribunals for crimes committed in Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Lebanon and Liberia. It has also undertaken a tribunal assessment project to examine the impact of the ICTY and other tribunals and derive lessons that could be useful to future courts.