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Searching Through Systems: Research Guide for UN Criminal Tribunals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2019

Extract

This research guide aims to provide individuals with an understanding for how to approach topics related to the past, current, and future work of the international criminal tribunals established under the domain and supervision of the United Nations. With attention given to the broad nature and responsibilities of these ad hoc tribunals, this guide intends to give a general introduction to researching the tribunals and looking into various types of information that stem from the existence of these institutions. This includes researching information from judicial decisions to the administrative functions of these courts.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by the International Association of Law Libraries. 

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References

1 UN Official Languages, UN at a Glance, United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/aboutun-/languages.shtml (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

2 See International Law, United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/law/index.shtml (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (listing only five criminal tribunals as UN international courts and tribunals).Google Scholar

3 See Structure of the Court, Int'l Crim. Ct., http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Structure+of+the-+Court/ (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (stating that “[t]he Court is not part of the United Nations…”).Google Scholar

4 See supra note 1 (describing the use of several official languages and the importance of the working langauges for the UN and any organs or institutions therein).Google Scholar

5 See What are the official languages of the tribunal?, Ask the Tribunal, Spec. Trib. for Leb., http://www.stl-tsl.org/en/ask-the-tribunal/what-are-the-official-languages-of-the-tribunal (last visited Apr. 1, 2012); see also About the ICTY, Int'l Crim. Trib. for the former Yugoslavia, http://www.icty.org/sid/165 (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (describing the reasons for having multiple languages for the tribunal documents to provide both administrative functionality to the court and importance for the affected regions). Similarly, these official languages may be found within the statutes for the tribunals. See Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone art. 24, Jan. 16, 2002, available at http://www.sc-sl.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=u-Clnd1MJeEw%3D&; (last visited Apr. 1, 2012); see also Agreement Between the United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia Concerning the Prosecution Under Cambodian Law of Crimes Committed During the Period of Democratic Kampuchea art. 26, June 6, 2003, 2329 UNTS 1-41723 [hereinafter Cambodian Agreement], available at http://www.eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/legal-documents-/Agreement_between_UN_and_RGC.pdf (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

6 Mladic to boycott Hague tribunal hearing, says lawyer, B.B.C. News, July 3, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14009104 (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (exemplifying example of how respected news sources may use improper names for the tribunals and thus make it difficult in researching by relying on court names). Even the most familiar employees of the tribunals can disagree on the proper spelling or terminology of the tribunals. As an example, the Author was once in a discussion between two experienced lawyers working at the ICTY where they disagreed over whether “former” in the court name should be capitalized or not.Google Scholar

7 News Release, Request for Enforcement of Sentence, Extraordinary Chambers in the Cts. of Cambodia, Mar. 2012, http://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/articles/request-enforcement-sentence (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (describing how the Ministry of Interior for Cambodia will handle sentence enforcement).Google Scholar

8 See, e.g., Member States Cooperation, Int'l Crim. Trib. for the former Yugoslavia, http://www.icty.org/sid/137#sentences (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

9 Note the emphasis on the accent in the final letter.Google Scholar

10 The use of “?” in place of a letter in the ICTY system serves as a universal character and results in capturing accented letters and other spellings as well. See also How to Search for Documents, ICTR Basic Documents & Case Law (1995-2006), Int'l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda, http://www.ictrcaselaw.org/PublicHelp.aspx (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

11 The only tribunal not using a similar case numbering system to date is the Cambodian tribunal. This is likely due to the extremely national nature of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Instead, the courts there use a system modeled simply on the sequence number of the cases (e.g. Case 001, Case 002, etc.) However, even with this, the cases still use similar document type codes indicating appeals, trials, indictments, and other stages of a proceeding.Google Scholar

12 Tribunals will maintain a list of different codes to refer to types of documents. ‘Codes like “-I” for indictments or “-R” for decisions relating to motions based on particular rules are common across the systems.Google Scholar

13 Completing the ICTY's Work: the Residual Mechanism, About the ICTY, Int'l Crim. Trib. for the former Yugoslavia, http://www.icty.org/sid/10874 (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (describing how one of the primary goals of residual mechanisms after the close of a tribunal is to be “responsible for the preservation and management of the [tribunal's] archives, and for facilitating access to them.”).Google Scholar

14 See supra p. 4.Google Scholar

15 This statement is based on a questionnaire that was sent out by the Author to colleagues representing at least four of the five tribunals. Each person's response mentioned that the first source they turn to for research related to the tribunals is the relevant official tribunal website.Google Scholar

16 See supra p. 4.Google Scholar

17 See, e.g., Cryer, Robert, An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010) (found on WorldCat with the above described search and offers a substantial preview of the first 200 pages of the book).Google Scholar

18 For other listings of prominent authors and scholars in the area, researchers could also look to collections of individual articles and papers. See, e.g., Scholarly Writings of Faculty Members, United Nations Audio Visual Library of International Law, http://heinonlinebackup.com/HOLtest/UNLAV (last visited Apr. 17, 2012).Google Scholar

19 See supra p. 4.Google Scholar

20 See Gaelle Faure, French Court Shuts Down Google Books Project, L.A. Times, Dec. 19, 2009 http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/19/world/la-fg-france-google19-2009dec19 (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (describing how google books results may be limited by copyright laws of countries either preventing outright viewing of those published or restricting access to within that particular country based on IP addresses).Google Scholar

21 See supra p. 4.Google Scholar

22 Frederik Harhoff, Consonance or Rivalry? Calibrating the Efforts to Prosecute War Crimes in National and International Tribunals, 7 Duke J. Comp. & Int'l L. 571 (1997).Google Scholar

23 War Crimes, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity Journal, Criminal Justice Program, Penn State Altoona, http://www.war-crimes.org/ (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

24 See World Terrorism and the Balkans, Centre for Peace in the Balkans, http://www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=/content/wtb/wtb_main.incl (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (providing links to several articles and publications on Osama bin Laden and the US war on terror).Google Scholar

25 See Cambodian Agreement, supra note 5 (Preamble).Google Scholar

26 See, e.g., Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale Univ., http://www.yale.edu/cgp/photographs.html (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (providing links to photographs and other multimedia not directly accessible on the tribunal or UN websites).Google Scholar

27 See supra p. 13.Google Scholar

28 Amendments to the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, IT/275 (Int'l Crim. Trib. for the Former Yugoslavia, Oct. 21, 2011), available at http://www.icty.org/x/file/-Legal%20Library/Rules_procedure_evidence/it_275_111021e.pdf (last visited Apr. 1, 2012). Also, this amendment to the rule was created due to disagreements over the interpretations of earlier trial chambers in the ICTY which had stated this requirement as being present already in the rules.Google Scholar

29 United Nations Documentation Research Guide, Dag Hammarskjold Library, http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/symbol.htm (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

30 See U.N. President of the S.C., Letter dated Feb. 17, 2012 from the President of the Security Council to the Secretary-General, U.N. Doc. S/2012/102 (Feb. 17, 2012).Google Scholar

31 See, e.g., Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217 (III) A, U.N. Doc. A/RES/217(III) (Dec. 10, 1948).Google Scholar

32 It should be noted that although these guides may be helpful, many of the links on the website do not work. As a result, a researcher may need to use the main navigation links for INCORE's website in order to access the guides through the Conflict Data Service (CDS) as listed in the website's resources.Google Scholar

33 See Prosecutor v. Fofana & Kondewa (CDF Case), Case No. SCSL-04-14-T (Spec. Ct. Sierra Leone, Aug. 2, 2007), available at http://www.scsl.org/CASES/ProsecutorvsFofanaandKondewaCDFCase/-TrialChamberJudgement/tabid/175/Default.aspx (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) (listing the judgment into ten separate files at a combined total of over 290 pages).Google Scholar

34 See How to Search for Documents, supra note 10.Google Scholar

35 For an overview of boolean operators, researchers should consult guides on boolean searches. See, e.g., Boolean Operators Guide, Univ. Nevada-Reno, http://knowledgecenter.unr.edu/help/using/-booltips.aspx (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

36 See supra p. 4.Google Scholar

37 See Preface, ICTR Basic Documents & Case Law (1995-2006), Int'l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda, http://www.ictrcaselaw.org/ContentPage.aspx (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

38 Compare Find Court Document, http://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/search/-document/court (last visited Apr. 1, 2012) with ICTY Court Records, http://icr.icty.org/ (last visited Apr. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

39 This also covers the ICTR from 2006-onwards for major judgements as well, but must be accessed through the ICTY site.Google Scholar

40 Int'l Crim. Trib. Former Yugoslavia Database, WorldLII, available at http://www.worldlii.org-/int/cases/ICTY/ (last visited Apr. 15, 2012).Google Scholar

41 See Studie- en Informatiecentrum Mensenrechten (SIM) Case Law Database, Neth. Inst. Hum. Rts.: Utrecht Sch. L., http://sim.law.uu.nl/sim/caselaw/tribun-alen.nsf/%28Accused_All%29?OpenView (last visited Apr. 16, 2012) (where the Database only includes case law for the ICTY and ICTR).Google Scholar

42 See supra p. 25.Google Scholar

43 See Completing the ICTY's Work: the Residual Mechanism, supra note 13.Google Scholar