11-09-09
News
ICC and UNICRI produce first judicial summaries for victims in ICC
The UNICRI Security Governance/Counter-terrorism Laboratory (Lab) has just completed a joint project with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to produce the first judicial summaries related to victims. The project was undertaken within the framework of the Lab’s Security Governance in Post-Conflict and Crisis Areas. UNICRI’s role in presenting and promoting the knowledge and the legacy of the International Tribunals has been highlighted through this project.
Following the request of the ICC the project was developed to support ICCs actions in deterring future atrocities. This was done by analyzing its jurisprudence regarding victims’ representation and participation. It is for this reason that current practices and needs in the production and maintenance of ICC judicial summaries have been explored and that summaries of key ICC judicial decisions on victim-related matters have been generated.
The summaries have been designed primarily for ICC legal experts and partners who deal with victim related matters. However, the summaries also aim to serve as a legal tool for general, non-technical and moderately technical user groups. Given this premise, the key project activities were to:
- abbreviate the ICC judicial decisions on victim-related matters,
- quote original adjudications,
- draft explanatory annotations and observations in order to aide in the preservation of best practices and in the optimising of resources.
Drafting the summaries included collecting and recording the appropriate keywords for each decision, so as to retrieve multiple decisions dealing with a given subject(s). Furthermore, metadata was compiled to render the summaries publicly accessible and user friendly. This means that summaries of the data contained within the judicial decisions were produced in order to make it easier to find and utilise the information held within each decision. Finally, these summaries are to be regarded as “living documents” thus meaning that the content can be updated and revised as and when required by the ICC.
