Introducing the Symposium on the Creation of a Single Residual Mechanism for Atrocity Crimes

Since the early 1990s, the international community has held individuals responsible for the commission of mass atrocities through a series of conflict-specific international ad hoc and hybrid criminal tribunals. Unlike the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), these tribunals have been designed to reduce their size and capacities after all major prosecutions have been completed. The residual mechanisms that result from this reduction in prosecutorial functions continue to carry out predominantly non-prosecutorial core residual functions, such as archival management, victim and witness protection, sentence enforcement and contempt hearings, and protection and promotion of the predecessor tribunals’ legacies.

This symposium focuses on whether the international community should consider combining all existing and future residual mechanisms into one single residual mechanism . This could promote convergence in the development of international criminal law, ensure continued and predictable funding for the mandates of residual mechanisms that otherwise might face underfunding or closure, and increase administrative and resource-related efficiencies across the residual mechanisms in the execution of their core residual functions.