أعمالنا
CIJA supports justice and accountability for mass atrocities by strengthening national capacity to investigate, document, and prosecute war crimes through expert training, evidence collection, and legal support. We work in accordance with criminal justice standards and international best practices to ensure that the evidence is admissible in court, in order to advance criminal justice efforts and combat impunity at both national and international levels.
CAPACITY Development AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
CIJA develops sustainable criminal investigative capability amongst its team members, national partners and competent national authorities, to ensure that the investigation of international crimes are carried out in accordance with criminal justice standards.
Capacity Development: team members and partner organisations undergo comprehensive training and mentoring by CIJA’s international expert practitioners, covering a wide range of topics including evidence collection and management, witness interviewing skills, sexual and gender-based violence investigations, online investigations, all source analysis and complex case building. CIJA field teams receive direct support from senior team members on a regular basis and benefit from an ongoing capacity development program that builds on past skills.
Technical Assistance: CIJA’s international experts work alongside competent national authorities, including first-instance investigators, to develop and embed holistic investigative systems that apply criminal justice standards and principles. This includes developing the skills, techniques and knowledge needed to manage complex international crime investigations in real-time, including investigation strategies, procedures and protocols, battlefield evidence collection, digitization and preservation, all-source evidentiary analysis, the development of case files or analytical products, as well as justice and cooperation practices.
INVESTIGATION
CIJA leads or supports investigative teams that interview witnesses and gathers documents as well as other physical and digital evidence generated by perpetrator groups, in accordance with criminal justice standards.
CIJA focuses on the collection of inculpatory and exculpatory material that may serve as evidence in criminal proceedings. CIJA team members have extensive experience in carrying out criminal investigations or have been trained and mentored by our senior international experts. The primary objective is to support the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for these crimes.
CIJA focuses on the collection of evidence related to organizational and command structures that can help to identify leaders within groups or criminal organizations who order, direct or manage criminal activity. As part of this approach, CIJA has expertise in developing holistic investigative systems that respond to the characteristics of the conflict or atrocity and the sources of evidence being generated by the perpetrating parties, including battlefield investigations. In all relevant instances, CIJA includes an examination of alleged sexual and gender-based crimes within the scope of investigations and subsequent analytical work, and embeds international best practices into its work, including international initiatives on trauma and stigma.
EVIDENCE PRESERVATION AND MANAGEMENT
CIJA facilitates the development of evidence management systems that are capable of scanning, archiving, preserving and managing high volumes of collected materials, ensuring their availability for future investigations and prosecutions, including amongst multiple national law enforcement actors.
CIJA ensures that all available materials are scanned, registered, verified and archived using appropriate and secure evidence management systems and archives, in line with rigorous procedures that adhere to investigative protocols and criminal justice standards. This includes designing and implementing systems that facilitates efficient and legally robust cooperation amongst domestic law enforcement efforts, such as police, prosecutors and security, as well as with third state or international counterparts. CIJA’s experienced teams support competent national authorities to develop and implement such systems or can independently establish such systems where cooperation is not possible.
ANALYSIS, CASE BUILDING and Public reports
CIJA analysts and lawyers develop the capacity of competent national authorities to analyse complex international crimes, develop case files and other analytical products in support of investigative priorities as well as providing independent analytical capability, where required.
Analysis and case building: CIJA’s multi-disciplinary analytical experts support competent national authorities to develop their analytical capacity to carry out international crime analysis and develop casefiles or other analytical products, in parallel to our own investigations. CIJA also maintains a team of analysts who provide assistance to a large number of domestic law enforcement agencies and international justice actors. This includes rigorous analysis of all inculpatory and exculpatory evidence concerning alleged crimes, the structure of responsible groups, and the role of individual perpetrators, as well as analytical briefs and responses to relevant criminal justice partners as they work to understand the often-complex structures as well as individuals associated with the criminality being investigated.
Public reports: CIJA occasionally publishes public reports detailing key aspects of its own investigations or analysis to address key aspects of the alleged crimes or structures of perpetrating entities, as part of our commitment to the right to truth of the affected communities we serve. In doing so, we carefully balance the integrity of our investigations, confidentiality and security alongside the right to the truth of the affected communities we serve and the wider public. The documents used and cited are representative of CIJA’s wider evidence holdings and are sufficiently robust to release in public reports without endangering our teams, witnesses and ongoing cases pursued by CIJA or one of its law enforcement partners. However, they are not exhaustive: documents will not be cited or referenced where they are highly sensitive, pose risks to CIJA personnel or witnesses or may jeopardise investigations or prosecutions, including where reference would reduce or jeopardise their probative value.
ASSISTANCE TO JUSTICE ACTORS
CIJA implements judicial assistance programs to ensure that domestic and international justice actors receive information, evidence and analysis in support of their ongoing investigations and prosecutions.
Domestic law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities: International and transnational crimes involve numerous perpetrators across multiple countries which increasingly requires the cooperation of multiple actors in different jurisdictions. Suspects – as well as victims and other sources of evidence – are often located in countries far removed from the conflict or criminality which requires cooperation amongst different entities. In some instances, third countries are eager to prosecute those responsible for such crimes, either because the perpetrator is in their country, a victim of their crimes is a citizen or because the country has the legal structure to prosecute those responsible for certain crimes no matter where they occur. CIJA has supported a wide range of domestic law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities, through the provision of information, evidence and analysis of our own investigations as well as by strengthening the assistance capacity of competent national authorities.
In all instances, CIJA supports efforts to bring to justice suspects who are within the reach of domestic authorities who are willing and able to investigate and prosecute them, while also respecting the rights of all those accused of crimes no matter the allegations against them.
International justice actors: International Courts and Tribunals have played important roles in accountability for international crimes since the end of the Second World War. These courts and tribunals often have a specific focus on particular international crimes in specific geographic areas. In situations where CIJA has collected information related to the crimes being investigated by these bodies, CIJA provides that evidence to the relevant court or tribunal. CIJA also cooperates closely with international bodies, including relevant UN Commissions of Inquiry, Independent Investigative Mechanisms and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in accordance with Memorandums of Understanding which guarantee the upholding of CIJA’s informed consent procedures with witnesses.