As part of the international initiative to strengthen the Justice Rapid Response (JRR) mechanism, No Peace Without Justice as the Interim JRR Secretariat, in close cooperation with the JRR Coordinating Group, conducted a JRR Certification Workshop in Brussels for experts on 5-8 February 2010, with financial support from the governments of Canada and Finland and the European Union.
The JRR Certification Workshop was designed to certify another group of experts to the JRR roster by providing experts who are already fully trained for international criminal justice-related deployment with training on how to apply their expertise to JRR situations. The new group of experts certified to the JRR roster could now be deployed if a request is received, helping to strengthen JRR’s operational capabilities.
The workshop was attended by ten experts in various aspects of international criminal investigations representing Romania, Uganda, United Kingdom, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Presenters, including NPWJ experts, and observers from the Canadian Government, the European Commission, the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI), the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, the International Security Sector Advisory Team (ISSAT) and the Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue also attended the workshop.
JRR is an international cooperative mechanism for the supply of voluntary assistance at the request of a State or international institution, where the identification, collection and preservation of information would assist a wide range of international and transitional justice options. The JRR is a stand-by facility developed to enhance the international community’s ability to assist in the provision of accountability processes for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and to ensure that international justice plays an integral role in post-conflict peace building.
In order to facilitate cooperation of partners in the JRR mechanism, No Peace Without Justice is acting as the Interim JRR Secretariat until modalities for coordination are further developed among the JRR participants or an international organisation may be in a position to take over the coordination and implementation of the JRR mechanism.
For further information, contact Alison Smith on asmith@npwj.org or +32-486-986 235 or Nicola Giovannini on ngiovannini@npwj.org or +32-2-548-3913.
Program of the JRR Certification Workshop
Please visit the dedicated section of the website.