Criminal Law

The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals ("Mechanism") is mandated to perform a number of essential functions previously carried out by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (“ICTR”) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”). In carrying out these essential functions the Mechanism maintains the legacies of these two pioneering ad hoc international criminal courts and strives to reflect best practices in the field of international criminal justice.

This guide focuses on online and print sources relating to the following three international criminal courts: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). The guide begins with a chart comparing key features of these three courts. The guide then examines each court individually, as well as the Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunals, providing an overview of the court, the court’s basic documents, case law sources, and a listing of additional print and online sources for that individual court. A list of online and print resources that deal with multiple international criminal tribunals follows. Next, there is an overview of selected topics. Finally, the last section covers educational resources, other research guides, and bibliographies.

The Avalon Project, from Yale Law School, mounts digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. This collection contains documents from the Nuremberg Trials.

The Harvard Law School Library's Nuremberg Trials Project is an open-access initiative to create and present digitized images or full-text versions of the Library's Nuremberg documents, descriptions of each document, and general information about the trials.

An electronic version of the trials compiled by the Library of Congress.

The United Nations Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to "prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda and neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994". The Tribunal is located in Arusha, Tanzania, and has offices in Kigali, Rwanda. Its Appeals Chamber is located in The Hague, Netherlands.

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The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a United Nations court of law that dealt with war crimes that took place during the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s. During its mandate, which lasted from 1993 - 2017, it irreversibly changed the landscape of international humanitarian law, provided victims an opportunity to voice the horrors they witnessed and experienced, and proved that those suspected of bearing the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed during armed conflicts can be called to account.

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The Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone was established by an agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone to oversee the continuing legal obligations of the Special Court for Sierra Leone after its closure in 2013. These include witness protection, supervision of prison sentences, and management of the SCSL archives.

The Khmer Rouge regime took power on 17 April 1975 and was overthrown on 7 January 1979. Perhaps up to three million people perished during this period of 3 years, 8 months and 20 days. The end of Khmer Rouge period was followed by a civil war. That war finally ended in 1998, when the Khmer Rouge political and military structures were dismantled. In 1997 the government requested the United Nations (UN) to assist in establishing a trial to prosecute the senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge. In 2001 the Cambodian National Assembly passed a law to create a court to try serious crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime 1975-1979. This court is called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea Extraordinary Chambers or ECCC).

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is a tribunal of international character. It was established upon Lebanon’s request in reaction to the 14 February 2005 terrorist attack in downtown Beirut that killed 22 people, including former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and injured many others. Brought into force by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1757, during its mandate, it convicted Messrs Ayyash, Merhi and Oneissi in absentia for their roles in the attack and sentenced them to five concurrent sentences of life imprisonment (STL-11-01 case). This was the heaviest sentence possible under the Tribunal’s Statute and Rules, reflecting the nature of the crimes committed, its impact on the victims and on Lebanese society as a whole.