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International Criminal Law

ICL Websites & Databases

Websites & Databases 

The ICC Legal Tools database (open access) includes:

  • ICC Documents: basic legal documents and the public decisions;
  • ICC 'Preparatory Works' and Statute Amendments: more than 9,000 documents related to the negotiation of the ICC Statute, Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and Elements of Crime documents, as well as documents related to amendments to the ICC Statute;
  • International Legal Instruments: a collection of key treaties;
  • Other International Law Decisions and Documents: documents of the International Court of Justice, International Law Commission, UN General Assembly and UN Security Council;
  • Human Rights Law Decisions and Documents: decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and documents of the UN human rights system;
  • International(ised) Criminal Jurisdictions (Basic Documents): basic legal documents of all the international(ised) criminal jurisdictions;
  • International(ised) Criminal Decisions: public decisions of the international(ised) criminal jurisdictions;
  • National Jurisdictions: basic documents on the legal system and status of core international crimes;
  • National Implementing Legislation: national implementing legislation, including access to the specialized National Implementing Legislation Database;
  • National Cases Involving Core International Crimes: the largest collection of such case documents;
  • Publications: publications relevant to work on international criminal law;
  • United Nations War Crimes Commission: the public part of the archive of the UN War Crimes Commission, included case-related documents;
  • International(ised) Fact-Finding Mandates: documents on international(ised) fact-finding mandates.

A particularly useful feature of this database is national legislation and cases from multiple jurisdictions - the basic documents of the legal systems of national jurisdictions and status of core international crimes; Implementing legislation of national jurisdictions; and National Cases Involving Core International Crimes

The International Criminal Tribunals: A Visual Overview, produced by the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School, provides an introduction to the work of the international tribunals and the conflicts which led to their establishment.

  • The report provides analysis and information, through written summaries and detailed visualisations, about each of the existing international tribunals: the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
  • The report reviews the conflicts that led to the establishment of each court; their costs and funding; the crimes the courts are charging, the status of each case, and their conviction rates; sentencing; and reparations.
  • The full text PDF of the report is available via this link.

The Ad Hoc Tribunals Oral History Project, begun in 2014 by the  International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University, seeks to preserve the voices of those individuals who worked to bring justice to Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and who contributed to the development and “institutionalization” of international criminal law during the early years of the ICTY and ICTR. The project aims to evaluate the challenges, successes, and mistakes of the Tribunals and to obtain insights into what the Ad Hoc Tribunals have and have not been able to achieve.

The International Tribunals Archive is organised and managed by the Library of Congress to digitally store relevant websites hosting information about the most important international tribunals created since World War II. More about the Archive.

The website for the UN's Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect contains detailed information about the role of the UN in the prevention of genocide, key UN documents, General Assembly debates, press releases and current news.

The UN's Refworld website contains legislation, cases, government and NGO reports, statistics and commentary arranged under broad topics such as international criminal law and international crimes.

Coalition for the International Criminal Court - The Security Council holds a biannual debate on protection of civilians in armed conflict during which many states and UN officials reiterate the crucial role of the ICC in this effort. This site has documents under the Resolutions and Topics link as well Government and Inter-governmental Documents, NGO Letters, Papers, Reports, and Statements, and NGO Media Statements.