About Us
War Crimes Studies Center
Founded in December 2000 at UC Berkeley, the War Crimes Studies Center (WCSC) is a small, university based organization dedicated to promoting the rule of law, accountability, and human rights around the world, particularly in post-conflict societies. The War Crimes Studies Center pursues its mission through work in four broad areas:
- Justice Sector Capacity Building
- Trial Monitoring and Research
- Education and Civic Outreach
- Archival Resource Development
Through independent trial monitoring, professional consultation, and substantive training workshops for justice sector personnel, the WCSC supports and helps improve the work of domestic courts, international tribunals and human rights commissions in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Center is further committed to increasing awareness and raising the level of discourse around new developments in the fields of human rights and international humanitarian law. To this end, the WCSC seeks to become a major public resource center for the study of war crimes trials, where students, scholars, and legal practitioners can take advantage of new technologies to access unique archival resources from World War II through contemporary international criminal trials.
Relying on a small core staff of lawyers, scholars, student interns, and volunteers, the WCSC does not aim to compete with or duplicate the work of major international human rights NGOs. Instead, the Center concentrates its modest resources where it can make a real difference in post-conflict societies seeking to come to terms with their violent past and provide their citizens with justice and accountability. While others scholars and organizations study and report on the work of the a handful of high profile international tribunals that dispose of very large resources and multiple avenues of international assistance, the WCSC seeks to identify needs in the under-resourced and too often ignored post-conflict justice processes in countries like East Timor, Indonesia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia. We work to assist the courts and other transitional justice mechanisms in meeting the challenges they face, and to provide national and international audiences with objective information and analysis about the activities and performance of these institutions.
