The Aegis Trust, in partnership with the Human Rights Office of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), successfully conducted a specialized training course on the enforcement of international criminal law and fair trial principles in Erbil.
The training course was developed by Aegis Senior Counsel Melissa Pack and Alain Werner to provide participants with a broad and deep understanding of what qualifies as international crimes, the procedural and evidence-based aspects of international criminal justice and fair trial standards, including – with the assistance of the War Crimes Studies Center, in Berkeley, California – guidelines for monitoring criminal trials.
The training incorporated a special focus on the work of the Iraqi High Tribunal, and featured a senior trial judge of the Tribunal and the Head Prosecutor of the Halabja case, who were invited to share with the trainees experiences and challenges they faced at the various stages of cases they handled.
The eight Iraqi criminal lawyers who benefited from the training viewed this as an excellent way to gain exposure to international humanitarian law and the judicial mechanisms for its enforcement. A female participant commented that, “this training gave us the opportunity to learn and hear of experiences from other tribunals on accountability for serious crimes.”
The Aegis Trust is engaged in long term work in Iraq and other locations, including in the context of Burma, training local human rights NGOs and lawyers in the field of international criminal law and its enforcement.
