History
of the Center
Founded
in December 2000 at the University of California at Berkeley through
a generous grant from the Wang Family Foundation, the Berkeley War
Crimes Studies Center (WCSC) houses an archive of World War II war crimes
trials and other materials relating to subsequent international and
national war crimes tribunals.
It also supports and analyzes the work of current tribunals, including
the International Tribunal for Rwanda, the Indonesian Ad Hoc Tribunals,
the U.N. Serious Crimes Panel in Dili, East Timor, the gacaca courts
in Rwanda, and the Sierra Leone Special Court. Its activities include
trial monitoring, judicial training, and the preparation of reports
and analyses. In addition to its trial monitoring project in Sierra Leone that commenced in June 2004, the Center is currently developing a regional monitoring program for the new Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). This program will include trial monitors from eight countries in the region as well as from the WCSC. (to see reports, click here), Since 2003 the center has worked with the Indonesian
Supreme Court in developing and implementing a training program for judges, prosecutors, and investigators in the Indonesian Human Rights Courts. In 2005, eleven Supreme Court Justices attended an international humanitarian law workshop co-sponsored by the WCSC and the East West Center (EWC), Honolulu. In 2006, the WCSC and EWC organized a "training the trainers" workshop for Indonesian Human Rights Court judges and prosecutors in Jakarta and participated in regional training workshops in Makassar.
As part of its educational mission at the University of California,
Berkeley, the Center involves undergraduates and graduate students
from a wide range of disciplines in its projects and activities. Since 2004 we have developed an internship program that forms part of an undergraduate, doctoral,
and post-doctoral research initiative in the area of human rights,
war crimes, and international justice. WCSC interns have held positions in tribunals, NGOs, and truth and reconciliation comissions in East Timor, Indonesia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and the ICTY and ICTR.
Mission
Statement
The
Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center's mission broadly divides into
four areas:
- Archival,
encompassing the collection and preservation of case records of
war crimes trials
- Training
and Monitoring through
judicial training and observing and reporting on trials
- Education,
focusing on internships, conferences, publications, promoting doctoral
and post-doctoral research, and collaborative and exchange programs
- Collaboration with and support of tribunals
I. Archival
Activities
Our goal is to serve as a major research and public
resource center for the study of war crimes trials. The Center collects
the trial records of national and international WWII war crimes trials
involving Japanese and German defendants. These trials were conducted
by more than twenty countries in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. The
archival work of the center is conducted in a partnership with the
Documentation Center for War Crimes Trials at the University of Marburg
(Director, Prof. Dr. H. Radtke). We are also in the process of participating
in the creation of partner center in China, which will work with us
on collecting the records of the more than 650 Chinese war crimes
trials of Japanese defendants, as well as on specific projects, such
as redress and reparations.
II. Training and Monitoring
Judicial
Training Programs
Our
Center is actively involved in creating and executing Judicial Training
Programs in International Humanitarian Law. Ongoing programs include the Indonesian Human Rights Courts, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Our training programs are built around interactive seminars and workshops, which bring distinguished senior judges, prosecutors, and other experts from the ICTY, ICC, and ICTR together with their colleagues in these other courts. These intensive workshops focus upon jurisprudential and other issues of particular concern for the participating tribunals.
Judicial
Monitoring
David Cohen, Director of the Center, monitored the Indonesian Ad Hoc
Human Rights Tribunal and the Special Panels for Serious Crimes in East Timor. His report on the Indonesian Trials, Intended to
Fail, was published by the International Center for Transitional Justice
(an electronic version is available on this website and at ictj.org).
More recently, the East West Center published his report on the Timor trials, Indifference and Accountability: The UN and the Politics of International Justice in East Timor. (link) We are the only organization conducting ongoing trial monitoring at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Our monitors issue weekly reports on
the trials, as well as special reports on various aspects of the justice process, including the treatment of charges of sexual violence, child witnesses, and the Defense Office. Researchers for the Center have
also reported on the Gacaca Courts of Rwanda. As noted above, our regional monitoring program will provide comprehensive analysis for the trials of Khmer Rouge leaders now in their early stages in Cambodia.
III. Education
In addition to internships, fellowships, and a variety of collaborative
projects involving universityies and research centers in Japan, Singapore,
China, Germany, Switzerland, and other countries, we also aim to promote
education in the area of war crimes and International Humanitarian
Law through a variety of other means. These include collaborative
publication projects, creation of a public exhibition of WWII war crimes
trials in Asia, and various international conferences.
Through
these activities the Center aims to play an active role in promoting
awareness about war crimes and human rights trials and ongoing developments
in International Humanitarian Law. Our mission is to provide archival
and expert resources for the public as well as tribunals, NGOs, and
educational institutions as well as to participate in the formulation
of public policy on these vital issues.
IV. Collaboration with and Support of Tribunals
In addition to providing training workshops and seminars, the WCSC has developed a number of other projects to support the work of international and national human rights and war crimes tribunals. For example, the WCSC is working together with the Special Court for Sierra Leone to create a Virtual Tribunal as part of the Special Court's Legacy Program.At the conclusion of the Serious Crimes Trials in East Timor, the WCSC agreed to provide an electronic archive for all of the judgments, indictments, and other documents from the Special Panel's for Serious Crimes (link to Virtual Tribunal of the Special Court for Sierra Leone). We also took over and maintain the website of the prosecution office, the Serious Crimes Unit. In regard to the ECCC, in partnership with the East-West Center, we organized an international conference on East Timor: Lessons Learned in May 2006. This conference was followed by an NGO Coordination Meeting and a consultative visit by a group of international experts in Phnom Penh, in June 2006, funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Currently, we are developing a film outreach program for the Khmer Rouge Trials, in collaboration with the Cambodian Center for Social Development and with the Open Society Justice Initiative. (OSJI)
