Coalition for International Justice Records

The Coalition for International Justice (CIJ) was an international non-profit organization created in 1995, which provided professional legal technical assistance to the International Criminal tribunal for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia. In addition, CIJ supported criminal and transactional justice initiatives for East Timor, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and Sudan. CIJ had offices in Washington, D.C., and The Hague in The Netherlands. CIJ originated and operated advocacy and public education campaigns, targeting decision-makers in Washington, media, and the public. CIJ, in conjunction with other non-governmental organizations around the world, helped direct and maximize the impact of individual and collective advocacy with regard to international and hybrid tribunals. In the field, CIJ provided practical assistance on legal, technical, and outreached matters to the tribunals and other justice initiatives.

CIJ mainly began its work with specific goals to help the new international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda to be as fair, responsible and effective as possible. CIJ has employed public education, advocacy, legal and technical assistance, courtroom monitoring and criticism to assist all the international tribunals in their struggle to meet the ambitious goals set for them.

In 1999, CIJ expanded its mandate to assist the emerging serious crimes investigations and prosecutions process in East Timor, efforts to establish a tribunal for Khmer Rouge crimes in Cambodia, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. At the same time they developed a sub-specialty in tracking the finances of persons accused of war crimes, issuing six detailed reports tracking money tied to the financial and political aggrandizement and protection of Slobodan Milosevic, Charles Taylor, Radovan Karadzic, the Khartoum elite, and Saddam Hussein, including the first, comprehensive expose of the U.N.’s Oil for Food program. CIJ also produced a how-to guide on conducting money-trail investigations.

In 2004, CIJ led a team of investigators from around the world in surveying over 1200 refugees from Darfur on the Chad border, which led to a historic first genocide determination by United States. Later, CIJ was one of the leaders of an effort to ensure that support for the referral of the Darfur case to the ICC be pushed in the context of a larger effort to gain support for international intervention aimed at protecting the besieged civilians in Darfur.

CIJ played an important role in ensuring that high level indicated persons are transferred to the tribunals. These efforts occupied an immense part of CIJ’s resources and time, and the relative success of CIJ’s leadership on this issue is a tribute to building and supporting unusual alliances, and closely following security and regional political issues and context. CIJ was not intended to become a permanent institution. After much discussion the Board of CIJ chose to end CIJ’s operations on March 31, 2006.