Today the International Criminal Court is examining allegations of grave crimes in Georgia, Colombia, Afghanistan, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and Gaza. These “preliminary examinations” are further raising the stakes in these already high-stakes areas of conflict. In this four-minute video, leading figures in international criminal justice discuss the role of the ICC’s newly public examinations. Ken Roth, CEO of Human Rights Watch, applauds them as a useful “prod” for domestic justice as well as a way of rebutting complaints that the ICC is too focused on Africa. ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo describes his authority to conduct these inquiries…

This six-minute micro-documentary explores the tensions between humanitarian NGOs and advocates for international justice. The president of Save the Children describes his organization’s explusion from Sudan by President Bashir after the ICC charged Bashir with crimes against humanity in March 2009. The ICC Prosecutor argues that President Bashir expelled these groups, not because of any real cooperation between the NGOs and his office, but to pressure the international community. The president of Human Rights Watch calls for a “parallel partnership” between humanitarian NGOs and the ICC to prevent…

GI-NET’s founders believed that private contributions in support of peacekeepers in Darfur, Sudan, the site of the twenty-first century’s first genocide, could strengthen the protection of civilians and inspire policymakers to take action. With the help of endorsers, GI-NET established a landmark program which allows average Americans to have a direct impact on the ground where genocide is occurring…

As a joint public-policy and law 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.

In preparation for the Consultative Conference on International Criminal Justice to be held in September at the United Nations in New York, a planning meeting was held in May 2009 in which Hauser Center staff interviewed Jonathan F. Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation, on the role of the foundation in supporting the advancement of human rights and justice globally, and the importance of the September 2009 session.

For over 30 years, the MacArthur Foundation has championed human rights and international justice through support to over 600 organizations worldwide…