Legal, Political, and Administrative Considerations for Establishing a Single Residual Mechanism for Atrocity Crimes

This post explores the legal, political, and administrative issues that would need to be addressed prior to the establishment of a single residual mechanism. The discussion in this post, as in Post I and Post III, is informed by a series of interviews conducted with experts in the field of international criminal law with experience in various ad hoc and hybrid international tribunals.

As the symposium’s first post suggests, establishing a single residual mechanism is not a simple, purely administrative endeavor, especially if the goal is to consolidate all existing and future tribunals and mechanisms. Creating a single entity raises many thorny legal, political, and administrative issues with which the international community will have to wrestle with to go from a blueprint on paper to a brick-and-mortar institution. The final post in the symposium will outline three proposals for how a single residual mechanism could be structured in light of these considerations.