The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Eurojust, and the Genocide Network Secretariat (GNS) hosted at the Agency, welcome winning this year’s overall Award of the European Ombudsman for Good Administration. European Ombudsman Ms Emily O’Reilly presented the Award today in Brussels for the joint initiative to publish Guidelines for Civil Society Organisations to document international crimes and human rights violations for accountability purposes.
The guidelines also received a separate award in the category for Excellence in Citizen-Oriented Delivery. In total 57 projects from EU institutions were selected by the office of the European Ombudsman and its Advisory Board.
The winning project is the result of an extensive cooperation between the OTP, Eurojust, and the GNS to support and empower Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) that collect and preserve information on international crimes and human rights violations, which may become admissible evidence in court. Concrete guidance is given on how to document information, including that which is collected on the ground during international conflicts.
The guidelines were drawn up building on the expertise of the OTP, Eurojust, the Genocide Network, CSOs, national prosecutors and international partners and were presented in September last year. They respond to requests from many CSOs and other stakeholders requesting clearer guidance on how to effectively support investigations and prosecutions for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide taking place in national and international jurisdictions. The guidelines are available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and as of today in Ukrainian.
The Genocide Network enables close cooperation between national authorities when investigating and prosecuting core international crimes. Its mandate is to ensure perpetrators of such crimes do not attain impunity within the Member States of the EU.
