The Quality Control Project: Documentation, Preliminary Examination, and Investigation

This online symposium gives you fingertip access to the main output of CILRAP’s Quality Control Project (2012-2020): 78 chapters (indexed and linked to below), amounting to 3,228 pages in four books by more than 80 authors, including several world-leading practitioners and experts. They discuss how we can work better in fact-rich cases during three distinct phases: fact-finding or documentation, preliminary examination as well as criminal investigation, covering the period from when NGOs first start to analyse allegations until a criminal trial begins.

This period attracts much less attention than the trial and appeal, but consumes more time and money as it is fundamentally fact-intensive. If serious errors are not corrected during preliminary examination and investigation, entire cases collapse.

Because there is more discretion and less outside involvement during this phase, the will to quality control – by individuals and agencies involved – is essential for resources not to be wasted and miscarriage of justice to be prevented. The Project therefore urges an individual mindset and organisational culture of quality control. The non-offensive term ‘quality control’ should be consolidated as a watchword in criminal justice for core international crimes.

This is already reflected in the final report of the Independent Expert Review of the International Criminal Court, led by Richard J. Goldstone, a contributor to the Quality Control Project since 2013, as well as in the contributions by other leaders in the field such as Xabier Agirre Aranburu, Mads Andenæs, Fatou Bensouda, Gilbert Bitti, Serge Brammertz, Andrew T. Cayley, Wolfgang Kaleck, LIU Daqun, David Re, Martin Scheinin and Carsten Stahn. Governments and civil society should use the term ‘quality control’ to build a momentum around ever-improving performance by those who spend taxpayers’ money on criminal justice for core international crimes.

The symposium concentrates on core international crimes, but it applies to other fact-rich cases such as organised crime, serious fraud, and human trafficking. It is just as relevant to national criminal justice agencies as it is to international jurisdictions and civil society fact-finders. The symposium contains a wealth of insights and suggestions relevant to practitioners, diplomats and scholars.

The Project has been financed by the Norwegian Government, and has enjoyed support from several institutional and individual partners, in particular the Indian Law Institute (Professor Manoj Kumar Sinha, Director of the Institute), the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda), Ambassador Narinder Singh (former Chair, UN International Law Commission), and Justice Madan B. Lokur (former Judge, Supreme Court of India).

The symposium draws on conferences in Florence (May 2013), The Hague (June 2017), and New Delhi (February 2019), and four books published as part of the Project: Quality Control in Fact-Finding (650 pp.), Quality Control in Preliminary Examination: Volume 1 (706 pp.), Quality Control in Preliminary Examination: Volume 2 (764 pp.), and Quality Control in Criminal Investigation (1,108 pp.). The index below gives you one-click and free access to all chapters and forewords in these books.

Quality Control in Fact-Finding

Table of Contents
'Preface to the Second Edition'
By Morten Bergsmo and Carsten Stahn
'Foreword to the Second Edition'
By Mads Andenæs
'Preface to the First Edition'
By Serge Brammertz
'Foreword to the First Edition'
By Morten Bergsmo
'Foreword to the First Edition'
By LING Yan
'Non-Criminal Justice Fact-Work in the Age of Accountability'
By Marina Aksenova, Morten Bergsmo and Carsten Stahn
'Quality Control in International Fact-Finding Outside Criminal Justice for Core International Crimes'
By Richard J. Goldstone
'Improving Fact-Finding in Treaty-Based Human Rights Mechanisms and the Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council'
By Martin Scheinin
'Justified Belief in the Unbelievable'
By Simon De Smet
'Quality Control in Truth and Reconciliation Processes'
By LIU Daqun
'Quality Control and the Mandate of International Fact-Finding'
By FAN Yuwen
'Coherence in the Design and Implementation of the Mandates of International Fact-Finding Commissions: Internal and External Dimensions'
By Isabelle Lassée
'Quality Control and the Selection of Members of International Fact-Finding Mandates'
By WU Xiaodan
'Purpose and Legitimacy in International Fact-Finding Bodies'
By Dan Saxon
'Witness Sensitive Practices in International Fact-Finding Outside Criminal Justice: Lessons for Nepal'
By Christopher B. Mahony
'Fact-Finding in the Former Yugoslavia: What the Courts Did'
By David Re
'International Criminal Law Outside the Courtroom: The Impact of Focusing on International Crimes for the Quality of Fact-Finding'
By Dov Jacobs and Catherine Harwood
'Can International Criminal Investigators and Prosecutors Afford to Ignore Information from United Nations Human Rights Sources?'
By Lyal S. Sunga
'Non-Governmental Organisation Fact-Work: Not Only a Technical Problem'
By Wolfgang Kaleck and Carolijn Terwindt
'Fact-Finding and the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission'
By Charles Garraway
'Information Technology and Quality Control in Non-Criminal Justice Fact-Work'
By Ilia Utmelidze
'Human Rights Fact-Finding: Some Legal and Ethical Dilemmas'
By Geoffrey Robertson
'Finding Facts on Facebook: Social Media in the Work of Human Rights Fact-Finding Bodies'
By Emma Irving
'International(ised) Criminal Justice at a Crossroads: The Role of Civil Society in the Investigation of Core International Crimes and the ‘CIJA Model’'
By William H. Wiley

Quality Control in Preliminary Examination

Table of Contents
'Foreword'
By LIU Daqun
'Foreword'
By Martin Sørby
'Foreword'
By Morten Bergsmo and Carsten Stahn
'On the Magic, Mystery and Mayhem of Preliminary Examinations'
By Carsten Stahn, Morten Bergsmo and CHAN Ho Shing Icarus

Part 1: The Practice of Preliminary Examination: Realities and Constraints

'Constraints and Quality Control in Preliminary Examination: Critical Lessons Learned from the ICTY, the ICC, the ECCC and the United Kingdom'
By Andrew T. Cayley
'The Concern for Quality Control and Norwegian Preliminary Examination Practice'
By Runar Torgersen
'Preliminary Examination in the United States Military: Quality Control and Reform'
By Franklin D. Rosenblatt
'Pre-Investigation and Accountability in India: Legal and Policy Roadblocks'
By Abraham Joseph
'German Preliminary Examinations of International Crimes'
By Matthias Neuner
'The Legalistic Function of Preliminary Examinations: Quality Control as a Two-Way Street'
By Matilde E. Gawronski
'The Pre-Preliminary Examination Stage: Theory and Practice of the OTP’s Phase 1 Activities'
By Amitis Khojasteh

Part 2: Case Studies or Situation Analysis

'The ICC Involvement in Colombia: Walking the Fine Line between Peace and Justice'
By Marina Aksenova
'‘Magical Legalism’ and the International Criminal Court: A Case Study of the Kenyan Preliminary Examination'
By Christian M. De Vos
'Challenges in the Relationship between the ICC and African States: The Role of Preliminary Examinations under the First ICC Prosecutor'
By Benson Chinedu Olugbuo
'Dealing with the Ongoing Conflict at the Heart of Europe: On the ICC Prosecutor’s Difficult Choices and Challenges in the Preliminary Examination into the Situation of Ukraine'
By Iryna Marchuk
'Accountability for British War Crimes in Iraq? Examining the Nexus between International and National Justice Responses'
By Thomas Obel Hansen
'The UK in Iraq and the ICC: Judicial Intervention, Positive Complementarity and the Politics of International Criminal Justice'
By Rachel Kerr
'The Situation of Palestine in Wonderland: An Investigation into the ICC’s Impact in Israel'
By Sharon Weill
'Quality Control in the Preliminary Examination of the Georgia Situation'
By Nino Tsereteli
'The Venture of the Comoros Referral at the Preliminary'
By Ali Emrah Bozbayındır

Part 3: The Normative Framework of Preliminary Examinations

'Prosecutorial Ethics and Preliminary Examinations at the ICC'
By Alexander Heinze and Shannon Fyfe
'Politics, Power Dynamics, and the Limits of Existing Self-Regulation and Oversight in ICC Preliminary Examinations'
By Asaf Lubin
'Disarming the Trap: Evaluating Prosecutorial Discretion in Preliminary Examinations beyond the False Dichotomy of Politics and Law'
By Jens Iverson
'Make the ICC Relevant: Aiding, Abetting, and Accessorizing as Aggravating Factors in Preliminary Examination'
By Christopher B. Mahony
'The Standard of Proof in Preliminary Examinations'
By Matthew E. Cross
'Reconceptualizing the Birth of the International Criminal Case: Creating an Office of the Examining Magistrate'
By Gregory S. Gordon

Part 4: Transparency, Co-operation and Participation in Preliminary Examination

'Deterrence or Withdrawals? Consequences of Publicising Preliminary Examination Activities'
By Ana Cristina Rodríguez Pineda
'Objectivity of the ICC Preliminary Examinations'
By Vladimir Tochilovsky
'The ICC’s Interplay with UN Fact-Finding Commissions in Preliminary Examinations'
By Mutoy Mubiala
'Non-States Parties and the Preliminary Examination of Article 12(3) Declarations'
By LING Yan
'Making Sense of the Invisible: The Role of the ‘Accused’ during Preliminary Examinations'
By Dov Jacobs and Jennifer Naouri
'Quality Control in the Preliminary Examination of Civil Society Submissions '
By Andreas Schüller and Chantal Meloni
'Civil Society Participation in Preliminary Examinations'
By Sarah Williams

Part 5: Thematicity in Preliminary Examination

'Quality Control in Preliminary Examination of Rape and Other Forms of Sexual Violence in International Criminal Law: A Feminist Analysis'
By Usha Tandon, Pratibha Tandon and Shreeyash U. Lalit
'Preliminary Examinations and Children: Beyond Child Recruitment Cases and Towards a Children’s Rights Approach'
By Cynthia Chamberlain
'Casting a Larger Shadow: Premeditated Madness, the International Criminal Court, and Preliminary Examinations'
By Mark Kersten
'Open Source Fact-Finding in Preliminary Examinations'
By Alexa Koenig, Felim McMahon, Nikita Mehandru and Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee
'ICC Preliminary Examinations and National Justice: Opportunities and Challenges for Catalysing Domestic Prosecutions'
By Elizabeth M. Evenson

Quality Control in Criminal Investigation

Table of Contents
'Preface by the Co-Editors'
By Xabier Agirre Aranburu, Morten Bergsmo, Simon De Smet and Carsten Stahn
'Foreword'
By Fatou Bensouda
'Foreword'
By Manoj Kumar Sinha
'Prologue'
By Gregory S. Gordon
'Investigative Bottlenecks and the Mindset of Quality Control'
By Xabier Agirre Aranburu and Morten Bergsmo