Statement of purpose
With the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the need to train prosecutors, judges, government officials, and attorneys at law in the Contracting Parties, as well as lawyers willing to join the ICC, becomes increasingly crucial.
ETHICS provided high-level and intensive training to professionals who work in the international criminal justice system.
Adopting a practice-oriented approach, this project enabled participants to acquire and develop in-depth skills in both substantive and procedural aspects of international criminal law.
Courses were conducted in English or French (with simultaneous interpretation) by international judges and prosecutors as well as distinguished academics and counsel.
Structure of the project
A two week intensive training course took place from 16-27 February 2004 at the European University Institute in Florence. The course was open to 60 participants from States Parties to the ICC Statute (20 to 30 scholarships were granted to candidates from non-OECD countries).
The teaching programme covered two main areas:
- Fundamental principles of international criminal law and international humanitarian law;
- International criminal justice in practice: lessons from the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and issues facing the ICC.
Training took the form of:
- Lectures providing a comprehensive framework of the legal issues;
- Workshops offering a highly interactive forum for participants to raise solution-oriented questions.
Basic teaching materials were distributed in advance and accompanied by a complete set of documents, including papers especially produced by the speakers as well as summaries of the most relevant case law.
Four shorter regional workshops were held in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe in 2004-2006 for participants from non-OECD countries to promote training and expertise in international criminal justice.
These workshops enabled the dissemination of knowledge within Contracting Parties with a view to sustaining the training of professionals at the national level.
Subsequently, these materials have been made available on CD-Rom, and the web site will constantly be supplemented and updated with any new materials relevant to the project.
Page last updated on 18 August 2017