As a joint public-policy (Harvard) and law (Berkeley) student, I took Professor Chris Stone’s “Workshop on Crime and Criminal Justice Reform in Global Context” during the Spring of 2009.

Harvard’s criminal justice program connects research closely with the world of practice, so as fieldwork for this class, I spent spring break in the Hague with justice and human rights NGOs from all over the world, leaders from the International Criminal Court, and staff from Harvard’s Hauser Center.

On this trip the group I was a part of was tasked with beginning to understand and describe the ‘network’ of the ICC within the larger international criminal justice system.

While in the domestic context, a conversation about the ‘network’ of a judge or prosecutor would have negative connotations of political schmoozing and undue influence, for the criminal Court of last resort, networking is imperative. Diverse NGOs, Inter-Governmental Organizations (IGOs), States, and influential individuals, worked together to create the Court in 2002, and now continue to work together to help sustain this newborn international entity. These odd bedfellows naturally have complicated relationships: while the contrast between NGOs and States is more obvious, even within NGOs, there is often much tension: different regional biases, different concepts of justice, different modus oprendi, and often competing support constituencies.

Trying to understand some of the relationships between some of these key players in the international criminal justice syswem, we attended three days of meetings between NGOs and the International Criminal Court (ICC), organized by the Coalition for the ICC (CICC), a global coalition of over 2500 NGOs.

CICC organizes these meetings bi-annually. They are a fascinating opportunity to witness interactions between a diverse range of NGOs – from international human rights organizations to local legal aid clinics – and the major organs of the Court.

During shared meals and downtime, we also spoke directly with several NGO leaders, ranging from grassroots NGOs in conflict-torn Uganda and Darfur to large international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch.

Though no expert at “network analysis”, I focused on collecting information about the quality and character of the relationships between organizations and institutions. The significance of this “network” – the interconnections that link these actors - became all the more evident through this process.

For one, the ‘network’ provides critical information to the Court from the ground.

Giving feedback and perspective at the Hague, were NGOs from Northern Uganda who worked directly with Ugandans affected by the 20-year-long brutal conflict between the rebels, who claim government negligence of the region, and the Ugandan government. The rebels, led by Joseph Kony, are organized in to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Most notoriously, the LRA has abducted, mutilated, and traumatized thousands of children to utilize them as “child soldiers”. Around 1.6 million people – 90 percent of the region’s population – have been internally displaced, and some estimate the death toll up to 500,000.

Similarly, representatives from Sudanese NGOs provided important insight to the perception of the ICC in Sudan post the issuance of the controversial ICC arrest warrant for the Sudanese President, Omar Al-Bashir.

At the meetings in the Hague, the presence of leaders from community-based NGOs working at the heart of conflict situations provided a golden opportunity for stronger network-building and future alignment between the larger and smaller NGOs as well as between ICC and the NGO community.

I believe all of these efforts to exchange information and perspectives will help identify even greater places for collaboration – as well as surface and clarify tensions and unforeseen challenges. These exchanges also raise questions of who is not at the table and who should be.

These important issues will be the central focus of a Consultative Conference on International Criminal Justice that will be held at the UN in New York this September.

Harvard’s Hauser Center is taking a lead role in convening this important conversation.

Through my field work this spring, I came to understand that the work of international justice is comprised of a diverse number of players whose strength actually lies in their difference and variety, all of which are within they shared common mission: ending impunity for the world’s most egregious crimes.