The term 'Legal Tools' refers to online legal-information services developed by the ICC Legal Tools Project since 2006, primarily with support from the European Union. The main services are the Legal Tools Database ('LTD'), the Legal Tools Website, and the Case Matrix. The anthology ''Active Complementarity: Legal Information Transfer'' provides comprehensive information about the ICC Legal Tools Project and its open access value-base. The ''Legal Tools Database'' is an online

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

international criminal law International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetrat ...

. It provides legal practitioners, researchers, students and the general public with open access to all relevant legal sources in international criminal law, including information on the core international crimes (

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the

crime of aggression A crime of aggression or crime against peace is the planning, initiation, or execution of a large-scale and serious act of aggression using state military force. The definition and scope of the crime is controversial. The Rome Statute contains an ...

). Being a tool of

computer-assisted legal research Computer-assisted legal research (CALR) or computer-based legal research is a mode of legal research that uses databases of court opinions, statutes, court documents, and secondary material. Electronic databases make large bodies of case law easily ...

, the LTD provides access to all relevant case law, legislation ( statutes and

treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...

), preparatory works as well as academic writings. All resources are stored under persistent URLs (so-called PURLs). As a consequence, courts, publishers (for example, the

Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher The Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher (TOAEP) is an academic publisher specializing in international law and policy. Established in 2010, it is named after Torkel Opsahl, TOAEP grew out of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) as a research pr ...

) and other online services (such as Lexsitus and the CMN Knowledge Hub) hyperlink to the LTD-PURLs. The International Criminal Court links in its main public decisions to the LTD. For example, the judgement of the trial chamber in the case of

Germain Katanga Germain Katanga (; born 28 April 1978), also known as Simba (), is a former leader of the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI), an armed group in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).International Criminal Court ( ...

included 538

hyperlinks In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text wi ...

. The LTD saw more than 6 million hits in 2018. As of 1 May 2019, it contained some 145,000 documents. The ''Case Matrix'' is another service of the ICC Legal Tools Project. It is a software that provides a matrix of the legal requirements of international crimes and modes of liability, on the one hand, and potential evidence or evidence, on the other. It has two digests of international case law quotations implemented at the level of elements of crime. The digests are also available in Lexsitus. There are online versions in English, Arabic and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. The Centre for International Law and Research (CILRAP) has hosted and serviced the Case Matrix since 2012. The creators of the Case Matrix, Morten Bergsmo and Ralph Hecksteden, won the 2008 Dieter Meurer Prize for Legal Informatics for its innovative qualities. The Case Matrix has motivated and informed the development of software such as I-DOC. The Case Matrix application has also inspired the name of the 'Case Matrix Network' which is the department of the Centre for International Law Research and Policy that is responsible for knowledge transfer and capacity development activities. The ''ICC Legal Tools Projec''t ('LTP') has led the development of the Legal Tools since their start in 2003. Morten Bergsmo founded the Project when he served as the Senior Legal Adviser of the Office of the Prosecutor of the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals f ...

(2002-2005), and he has been the LTP Co-ordinator since. Devasheesh Bais is the Deputy Co-ordinator. Ralph Hecksteden has been the technical developer of the Project since 2005. The Project is supported by more than a dozen academic institutions and

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...

s from all continents, as well as by more than 40 CMN Fellows offered ''pro bono'' to the Project by the Centre for International Law Research and Policy (CILRAP). The European Union and Finland have been the main donors to the ICC Legal Tools Project. The institutional partners in the project have received support from other donors, such as Norway.

Contents of the Legal Tools Database

As of 1 May 2019, the Legal Tools Database contained more than 145,000 documents. The documents can be accessed in a tree-structure, where they are organized in nine main collections. Each collection has multiple sub-collections, and responsibility to update the collections is assigned to partners or CMN Fellows according to a detailed table of responsibilities.See https://www.legal-tools.org/en/status-of-work-on-the-tools/table-of-responsibilities/. These are the nine main collections of documents in the Legal Tools Database: * International Criminal Court Documents * Other International(ised) Criminal Jurisdictions * International Legal Instruments * Human Rights Law Decisions and Documents * Other International Law Decisions and Documents * National Criminal Jurisdictions * Publications *

United Nations War Crimes Commission The United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) initially called the United Nations Commission for the Investigation of War Crimes, was a commission of the United Nations that investigated allegations of war crimes committed by Nazi Germany and ...

* International(ised) Fact-Finding Mandates

References

External links

Official Website of the Legal Tools Project

Building a public commons of legal sources in international criminal law
(Leaflet on the Legal Tools-Database, PDF-File, 974KB)
Video: How to use the ICC Legal Tools
(English, Centre for International Law Research and Policy) *Official web site for the Case Matrix: https://www.casematrixnetwork.org/icc-case-matrix/. *Official web site of Lexsitus: https://cilrap-lexsitus.org/. *Official web site of the CMN Knowledge Hub: https://www.casematrixnetwork.org/cmn-knowledge-hub/. International Criminal Court Online law databases Legal research {{law-stub