International Criminal Justice Unit
Our international criminal justice (ICJ) unit undertakes research and training, knowledge transfer, capacity building and technical support projects on a range of international criminal justice matters.
Established in 2003, the ICJ unit has hosted high-profile conferences and organised seminars, including at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Assembly of States Parties annual sessions in partnership with the ICC, States and the Coalition for the ICC.
The ICJ unit actively engages with the student population and provides opportunities for students to contribute to its work through annual summer internship and student research assistance programmes.
As the Head of the ICJ unit, Professor Olympia Bekou has provided research and capacity building support for 63 States, intensive training to more than 75 international government officials, including drafting assistance to Samoa (with legislation enacted in November 2007), Fiji and Jamaica, and has been involved in training the Thai Judiciary. She has also undertaken capacity building missions in post-conflict situations in Uganda, the DRC and Sierra Leone.
People
Unit Head
Professor Olympia Bekou, Professor of Public International Law and Head of the School of Law. Olympia teaches Public International Law and International Criminal Law and has an extensive publications and research project profile.
Unit Members
Hemi Mistry, Associate Professor of Law.
Natalie Hodgson, Assistant Professor of Law
Current collaborators
More on ICJ Unit people
Olympia is solely responsible for the National Implementing Legislation Database (NILD) of the International Criminal Court's Legal Tools Project. A qualified lawyer, Olympia is also Deputy Director of the Case Matrix Network, a member of the Advisory Board and Editor of the Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law and is on the Advisory Board of the NGO Civitas Maxima.
In 2016-2017, Olympia led a multi-national research team to conduct baseline analyses and legal analyses frameworks for CAR, DRC and Colombia in partnership with two international NGOs as part of a project entitled 'Strengthening the investigation, documentation and prosecution of sexual violence in conflict: Central African Republic, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Mexico', funded by the Magna Carta Fund for Human Rights and Democracy.
Projects
The unit is actively engaged in projects around the globe, including our featured projects working on accountability and justice in Liberia.
Featured work
In 2018 and 2019, Olympia was awarded two rounds of funding from the ESRC GCRF NGO Data IAA fund. She is working with the Global Justice and Research Project (GJRP), the leading Liberian NGO working on mass atrocity, to help bring justice to the victims of the Liberian armed conflicts through the analysis of data collected by GJRP.
All featured projects
Publications, news and events
As one of the six research units within the HRLC, you can find all our unit publications, news and events on the publications, news and events pages.