WHAT – Justice Rapid Response (JRR) is an intergovernmental stand-by facility to provide the international community with rapidly deployable criminal justice and related professionals to assist in cases where genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or serious human rights violations may have occurred.
WHO – JRR currently has 69 participating States, and has an Executive Board consisting of Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Finland, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, Sweden, Switzerland and Uganda (Chair).
JRR manages an ‘evergreen’ roster of just over 350, mainly active-duty professionals comprising a broad range of expertise including crime scene investigation, legal analysis, a variety of forensic specialties, witness protection, military analysis, human rights investigations etc. In addition to their expertise, these professionals receive training in carrying out investigations under international law in post-conflict environments before being certified to the JRR roster.
Experts on the JRR roster currently come from 87 countries representing every region of the world. Almost half of the experts come from the global South and over 43% of them are women.
JRR is further responsible, in conjunction with UN Women, for the management of a specialized holistic roster of experts in investigating crimes of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) in conflict situations. The experts on this SGBV roster undergo specialized training developed with and carried out by JRR’s training partner organization, the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI).
HOW – Experts from the JRR roster can assist in response to requests by States, or international institutions with the jurisdiction to carry out investigations, inquiries, fact finding, mediation support and other activities where the identification, analysis, collection, preservation and reporting of information pertaining to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or serious human rights violations is needed.
In three years of operations, JRR has already assisted in response to 17 requests for deployments of experts.
WHY – JRR provides the international community with a facility to more effectively deliver international criminal justice and respond to serious human rights violations, making it more likely that ‘seeing justice done’ becomes a component to post conflict peace-building, thereby reducing the possibility of a slide back into conflict.
JRR experts, coming from every part of the world, build national capacity, as well as internationally deployable capacity. In this way they assist in the delivery of the complementarity principle under the Rome Statue for the International Criminal Court.
WHERE - The JRR Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Secretariat also maintains a liaison office in New York, USA.
Click here to download the JRR Factsheet. (version française)