Seminar on best practices of UN-affiliated criminal tribunals held in Sierra Leone

The Prosecutors of the United Nations-affiliated criminal tribunals have met in Sierra Leone to review what has been learned from the many ad hoc criminal tribunals, including how best to deal with immunity, amnesty, child soldiers and forced marriages.

During the 24-25 June meeting, the Second Colloquium of Prosecutors, an international best practices committee was set up to oversee the process of collecting and analyzing material and the committee was to submit a plan of action by the end of August for approval, a statement from the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said.

"State cooperation with international criminal tribunals is one of the pillars upon which the future development of international law depends," the Prosecutors said.

The areas to be covered include evidence management, witness and protection management, gender crimes, operating procedures, tracking and arrests and ways of speeding up trials, they said.

The committee members are the ICTR Prosecutor and Chief of Prosecutions, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor and his Special Assistant, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) Prosecutor-designate and Chief of Prosecutions and the Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The First Colloquium of Prosecutors was held at the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania, in November 2004. The Prosecutors accepted the joint invitation of the ICTY and ICC to hold the Third Colloquium at The Hague, the Netherlands, next year.