International Criminal Tribunal
Definition
A judicial body established under international law to prosecute serious violations of international humanitarian law. The ICTY (1993) and the ICC (2002) have both relied on forensic archaeological evidence as part of their evidentiary record.
- Field
- International criminal law and forensic archaeology
- Purpose
- Prosecutes serious violations of international humanitarian law
- Example: ICTY
- Established 1993
- Example: ICC
- Established 2002
Common questions
Why do international criminal tribunals rely on forensic archaeological evidence specifically?+
Mass grave excavation and body recovery provide physical evidence of the scale, method, and timing of killings that can corroborate or challenge witness testimony, giving prosecutors independently verifiable evidence in cases where documentary records are absent or contested.
How does evidence gathered for a tribunal differ from a routine domestic forensic case?+
Tribunal evidence must meet chain-of-custody and methodological standards recognised across multiple legal systems, often involves multinational teams, and is frequently gathered under active conflict or post-conflict security constraints not typical of domestic casework.
Related terms
- AGSA
- The Archaeology and Forensic Science group, a specialist network within the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA), which has developed standards for casework,...
- EAAF
- The Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense (Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team), founded in 1984 to investigate disappearances during the military dictatorship. Widely regarded...
- Forensic Anthropology
- The laboratory and scene-side discipline concerned with the analysis of skeletal and decomposed remains to establish biological profile, manner of death, trauma,...
- Forensic Archaeology
- The application of archaeological field methods, including systematic search, controlled excavation, and single-context recording, to scenes that have a legal significance, whether...
- Scene Manager
- The role a forensic archaeologist often takes in the field: responsible for the physical recovery strategy, the recording system, and the integrity...