IICI was founded at the time of the establishment of the International Criminal Court, in recognition that, despite the more widespread application of international criminal law, there was no comprehensive training programme for investigators of international crimes.
Since its inception, IICI has trained and mentored hundreds of investigators across the world in the hard skills and techniques necessary to acquire evidence of a standard which will stand up to scrutiny in criminal courts, human rights commissions and elsewhere, and allow perpetrators of mass atrocities to be brought to justice. We conduct our regular courses in The Netherlands. Our bespoke capacity-building and technical advisory projects are delivered globally, from Asia, the Middle East and Europe to Africa and Latin America.
Course participants and project beneficiaries include national war crimes units, the International Criminal Court, the OHCHR and other UN agencies, UN and other peacekeeping missions and forces, national human rights bodies, and local and international NGOs. IICI is the training provider for Justice Rapid Response (JRR) in relation to its rapid-deployment roster of experts and for JRR-UN Women in relation to their sub-roster of SGBV experts.
IICI teaches core skills, but also seeks to develop new ones amongst the international criminal investigation community, including most recently:
- investigating conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)
- international crimes affecting children
- collection and evaluation of open-source evidence of international crimes
- investigating financial dimensions of international crimes
IICI contributes to the development, clarification and strengthening of international investigations standards and best practices through our capacity-building and experts’ advisory work, including written guidelines to plug gaps, such as the IICI guidelines for investigating conflict-related sexual violence against men and the forthcoming IICI guidelines for investigating international crimes affecting children.
IICI has also supported the development and implementation of the International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict (1st and 2nd editions), including through training and mentoring projects and by developing training materials accompanying the protocol and developing supplements to the protocol for Myanmar, Iraq and Sri Lanka.
IICI’s most recent contribution to the policy field is in leading the collaborative global initiative to develop the Global Code of Conduct for Gathering and Using Information about Systematic and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (the “Murad Code”).
Legal status and governance
The organisation is comprised of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI) and the Institute for International Criminal Investigations Foundation (IICIF). IICI is an American 501c(3) tax-exempt corporation incorporated in the State of California. IICIF is a Dutch charitable foundation based in The Hague, The Netherlands.
The People page explains IICI’s day-to-day management and governance structures.
