Effective judicial system ‘needed to try war criminals’

By Nour Abuzant

Attorney General Ali bin Futais al-Marri, second right, JRR chairman Andreas Vamos-Goldman, second left, Secretary General of the Arab Democracy Foundation Mohsen Marzouk and Alison Smith from No Peace Without Justice at a meeting

Qatar’s Attorney General Ali bin Futais al-Marri yesterday said the international  prosecution of potential war criminals "was not effective or quick due to difficulties in evidence gathering or providing proper protection to the witnesses.”
He was talking on the inaugural day of a nine-day workshop on Justice Rapid Response (JRR) in Doha, being attended by representatives of 50 countries.
The Attorney General said that the UN-backed courts to punish war criminals "needed a more comprehensive judicial system.”
Al-Marri said that any national or international trial cannot succeed without having proper evidence gathering in line with the global standards that are sufficient to convict suspects. "For this purpose,” he said, "we need well-trained staff with adequate knowledge of the international criminal law, evidence gatherings and experience on
forensic methods.”
Al-Marri concluded that if people worldwide felt that the global actions to hunt down criminals were politically-motivated, "then the entire process would loose credibility.”
The seminar, held at Millennium Hotel Doha,  is held as  part of the international initiative to develop a JRR mechanism and conducted with financial support from the governments of Canada, Holland and Germany.
 The purpose of the meeting is to certify criminal and related justice experts for inclusion on the JRR where the experts will learn how to apply their expertise to JRR situations and international criminal justice-related deployment.
 The training sessions will be led by a range of presenters including from No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI), and observers from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Crisis Group (ICG).
Training sessions will provide an overview of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC, with a special focus on gender-based crimes and crimes against children. Other sessions will look at methods and approaches to investigating mass crimes, forensic investigations, forensic financial investigations, and challenges in working in conflict and post conflict environments. The course will also include a field simulation and presentation by the ICC
Prosecutor’s office.
JRR is an international co-operative 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.