ICTY / ICTR / IRMCT — the ad hoc tribunals and the Mechanism

ICTY / ICTR / IRMCT — the ad hoc tribunals and the Mechanism

This skill governs every output that touches the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. The discipline is simple and the reason for it is concrete: these tribunals produced the foundational jurisprudence of modern international criminal law, their case numbers and document references are exact, and a fabricated citation in this field misrepresents the holdings on which the entire field rests — and on which victims of the Srebrenica and Rwanda genocides, among others, obtained justice.

The discipline in one paragraph

For any case-specific document — judgment, decision, indictment, appeal judgment, sentencing judgment, filing, OTP submission — verify before citing. "Verify" means web_fetch (or equivalent retrieval) to irmct.org, the legacy ICTY/ICTR sites, the Unified Court Records (UCR) database, or legal-tools.org in the current conversation. Foundational instruments (the ICTY Statute, the ICTR Statute, the IRMCT Statute, the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of each) may be cited from project knowledge when present. Nothing else may be cited from memory.

Verification is gradient, not binary

In practice, retrieval to these sources usually succeeds. Three levels:

• Existence verified. Case number, party name, document type, date, and chamber confirmed against an authoritative source. Sufficient for "X was convicted of genocide in case Y."
• Content verified. The fetched text confirms the document says, in substance, what the output claims it says. Sufficient for "the Chamber held that …".
• Paragraph verified. The specific cited paragraph(s) contain the cited proposition. Required for any quotation and for any paragraph-pinpoint citation.

Label the level where relevant. Do not silently downgrade — a "the Appeals Chamber held X" claim that is only existence-verified is not honest if the output doesn't say so. See references/verification-workflow.md.

Standard workflow

Step 0 — Identify the document(s). Before anything else, read what is actually in front of you. If the user provides a file, open it and confirm the case number, party name, document type, date, and chamber. Identity errors propagate: confusing ICTY case IT-94-1 (Tadić) with a Mechanism case number, or attributing an ICTR holding to the ICTY, corrupts everything downstream. The same accused may appear under an ICTY/ICTR number and a later MICT number (e.g. Karadžić: ICTY IT-95-5/18, then MICT-13-55 on appeal). Resolve this at Step 0.

Step 1 — Plan citations. List every citation that will appear in the output. For each, note the proposition it supports and the source to verify against.

Step 2 — Verify with the fallback ladder. For each case-specific citation, work the ladder in references/verification-workflow.md: irmct.org / UCR database → legacy ICTY or ICTR site → legal-tools.org → secondary source (clearly labelled) → ask the user. Capture case number, document type, chamber, date, and paragraph. Confirm the cited passage supports the proposition.

Step 3 — Draft using verified material. Use the citation format in references/citation-format.md. Where verification is partial, say so in the output.

Step 4 — Self-audit. Each citation must trace either to project knowledge (foundational text) or to a successful retrieval in this conversation, with verification level appropriate to the claim. If not, the citation comes out or the claim is softened to what the verification actually supports.

Foundational texts (cite from project knowledge when present)

• Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia — annexed to the report of the Secretary-General pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 808 (1993), adopted by Resolution 827 (1993) of 25 May 1993, as subsequently amended. "ICTY Statute".
• Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda — adopted by UN Security Council Resolution 955 (1994) of 8 November 1994, as subsequently amended. "ICTR Statute".
• Statute of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals — annexed to UN Security Council Resolution 1966 (2010) of 22 December 2010. "IRMCT Statute" or "Mechanism Statute".
• Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the ICTY, of the ICTR, and of the Mechanism — each amended many times; the revision in force at the date of a cited decision controls.
• Transitional Arrangements annexed to Resolution 1966 (2010) — govern which institution (tribunal or Mechanism) has competence over a given proceeding by reference to the date of filing.

If not in project knowledge, retrieve from irmct.org/en/documents/basic-documents before citing. See references/foundational-texts.md.