EXPLORING THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC JUSTICE EFFORTS: INTRODUCTION

The 2015-2016 academic year marked the twentieth anniversary of the War Crimes Research Office (WCRO) at American University Washington College of Law. The Office was established in response to a request for legal assistance from the first Chief Prosecutor of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), Richard Goldstone. Faced with bringing the first major international prosecutions since the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials following World War II, the ad hoc criminal tribunals found themselves at the forefront of international criminal law. The WCRO was originally created to assist these tribunals with the kind of specialized legal research and analysis that prosecuting cases of serious international crimes requires. In the twenty years since, the WCRO has worked with over fifteen different courts, tribunals, and organizations involved in the investigation and prosecution of serious international crimes, both at the domestic and international level.