More and more armed conflicts around the world are being followed by the establishment of commissions of inquiry and independent investigative mechanisms to establish the facts and act against impunity for perpetrators. International organisations such as the United Nations (UN) and its organs - the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, as well as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - are addressing serious human rights violations in countries through commissions of inquiry, fact-finding missions and independent investigative mechanisms.
Independent investigative mechanisms are extremely important because of their multifaceted role in promoting accountability of perpetrators, preventing impunity, upholding the rule of law and justice, as well as playing a key role in addressing human rights violations and promoting public confidence in institutions, which in turn strengthens trust in governance and the legal system. The Independent Investigative Mechanisms for Syria and Myanmar, for example, provide crucial support to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a variety of ways. They collect and document evidence relating to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and can thus contribute to the ICC's investigations, which operate on the basis of the principle of complementarity when national systems are unable or unwilling to prosecute perpetrators.
The hypothesis of this Master's thesis is:
Depending on how the body itself is established and how it operates, and in particular taking into account the evidentiary standards of international criminal law in the collection of evidence, reports of international independent investigative mechanisms may be admissible as evidence in proceedings before the ICC.
After the introduction, an analysis of the functioning of the three independent investigative mechanisms follows - the two UN mechanisms, i.e. the Syria and Myanmar mechanisms, and the OSCE mechanism, i.e. the Moscow Mechanism. Their establishment, their mandates and their cooperation with other international actors are analysed. This is followed by a presentation of the ICC's confirmation of charges phase and an analysis of its jurisprudence in order to confirm the hypothesis that the reports of the independent investigative mechanisms can be used as evidence in the confirmation of charges phase.
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