The War Crimes Project
The War Crimes Project
In 1996, the Center entered into a unique arrangement with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, under which New England School of Law students provide legal research and analysis to the war crimes prosecutor on issues pending before the Tribunal. Issues range from the contours of command responsibility to the interpretation of the Genocide Convention.
 Members of the Public International Law and Policy Group provide the students with guidance and research assistance, and members of the law school faculty supervise and edit the final work product before it is sent to the Tribunal. New England School of Law is one of very few law schools in the world with this arrangement with the international prosecutor. During the past five years, the Center has provided more than 70 legal memoranda and hundreds of thousands of pages of supporting research to the international prosecutor. The Tribunal recently cited a memo by a New England School of Law student, and it was appended to the prosecutor's brief in a published decision. These student memos are now available online.
The International Legal Research Assistance Consortium (ILAC):
War Crimes Prosecution Memos
In the spring of 2000, the leaders of several international bar
associations and human rights organizations established the International
Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC). The purpose of the ILAC is to provide
experts to countries on a speedy basis who would make assessments and
recommendations on accountability issues in the aftermath of conflict or
transition. ILAC also serves as an electronic clearinghouse of names of groups
and individuals who are available to assist countries with accountability
issues.
In addition to contact information about experts, the ILAC database
will include copies of peace agreements with accountability provisions, truth
commission mandates, domestic war crimes legislation and procedures, and legal
memoranda addressing issues that are likely to arise in domestic war crimes
trials. The New England Center for International Law and Policy was a founding
member of the ILAC, and has been designated as one of four institutions
initially making up ILAC's research arm. The Office of the Prosecutor of the
Rwanda Tribunal has given the Center permission to make the legal memoranda
prepared for the Office by New England School of Law students available to
world-wide access on the ILAC database "to aid efforts at achieving
international accountability in other parts of the world in the
future."
For more information, consult:
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