from the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre
The ICC launches knowledge-transfer platform: the new version of the Legal Tools
Late April 2009, the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched the new version of the Legal Tools, an online library on international criminal law and justice which will empower victims and others who seek a judicial response to atrocities by providing a central vehicle to obtain information on international criminal law.
The Legal Tools amount to a knowledge-transfer platform for international criminal and human rights law made freely available to the general public through the website of the ICC. The Legal Tools Database is the most comprehensive on international criminal law. It contains more than 40,000 documents, including decisions and indictments from all international or internationalised criminal tribunals, preparatory works of the ICC, case documents from the ICC, treaties, information about national legal systems, and relevant decisions from national courts. The service also contains a new knowledge-base on national legislation implementing the ICC Statute.
The Legal Tools were designed and developed in the Legal Advisory Section of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor by Morten Bergsmo and his team, while a network of outsourcing partners are collecting and registering the documents, metadata and keywords in the Legal Tools Database: the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (University of Oslo), the Human Rights Law Centre (University of Nottingham), the International Research and Documentation Centre for War Crimes Trials (University of Marburg), the Institute of International Law and International Relations (University of Graz), the T.M.C. Asser Institute, the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law and TRIAL (Track Impunity Always). The Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre has developed the knowledge-base on implementing legislation. The EEAR (European academy of eJustice) is responsible for technical implementation of the Legal Tools Database and Website.
The Legal Tools can be accessed through this web page: