Justice Rapid Response (JRR) is an innovative initiative established by States to improve the ability of the international community to end impunity for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious human rights violations. JRR provides a flexible, rapid, and cost-effective means to access relevant, highly specialized investigative expertise to assist with fact-finding, inquiries and investigations in situations where violations of international criminal law and serious human rights violations may have occurred.

To do this, JRR has created a geographically diverse and gender balanced roster of experts in a wide range of criminal justice and related fields who have completed specialized training in the conduct of international investigations. The experts on the JRR roster can be made rapidly available at the request of States, as well as international institutions with appropriate jurisdiction such as UN entities or the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The JRR Roster

Certification to the JRR roster requires the completion of specialized training on international investigations offered in collaboration with the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI), JRR's training partner. Twenty-five training courses have been delivered to date, in all regions of the world. Training participants are selected through a call for nominations process under which professionals wishing to be considered are nominated by their government or institution. The diverse composition and broad range of expertise of its roster allow JRR to provide the international community with experts who not only can fill specialized needs, but also possess the experience, language and cross-cultural management skills which are essential to working effectively in high-pressure international contexts.

Below is a snapshot of the current composition of the JRR roster:

• 400 rapidly deployable experts
• 87 nationalities
• 71 languages
• 40% from global South
• 52% women

Range of specialized expertise, including:

• criminal and human rights investigators
• legal experts including prosecutors
• international humanitarian law specialists
• forensics specialists (e.g. forensic doctors, pathologists, deontologists and archeologists, chemists, document analysts, visual image analysts, forensic ballisticians).
• police and military analysts
• sexual and gender based violence investigation
• witness protection and management specialists
• intelligence analysts
• interpreters

Partnership with UN Women on SGBV investigations-- In order to strengthen accountability for crimes of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), JRR has partnered with UN Women and IICI to create a mechanism for a pool of trained SGBV investigations experts available to the international community. These rapidly deployable professionals are able to lead and participate in investigations, prosecutions, and victim recovery in situations of conflict-related gender-based crimes. Since September 2012, 102 experts have been certified to this JRR-UN Women Justice Experts Roster, within the broader JRR roster thanks to four specialized training courses delivered in The Hague, Doha, Pretoria, and Bogota. SGBV investigations courses continue to be offered every year. So far, the SGBV investigations roster has been used to facilitate 13 deployments.

Enabling rapid deployment JRR first assessed each request to ensure that it can be responded to safely and in conformity with international law. It then assists the entity requesting assistance in identifying the most appropriate expert(s) for the mission. JRR is able to achieve a high short-notice dispatch rate thanks to prior flexible arrangements with the experts' respective employers. JRR also works with the entities that request expertise in order to identify agile solutions to execute deployments as quickly as possible.

Our vision:  JRR's goal is to ensure that timely, professional, impartial investigations of international crimes of serious concern contribute to creating a credible deterrent, thus helping post conflict societies avoid sliding back into conflict. In addition to constantly improving the depth, breadth and quality of its roster, JRR and its partners are expanding expertise in areas where investigations of these crimes can be improved. For example, JRR is working with its training partner IICI to develop a training program to ensure that asset recovery becomes an effective part of international investigations. This could contribute to addressing the issue of victim compensation. JRR is also currently undertaking a pilot initiative to establish capacity to provide assistance directly to States that have jurisdiction and the willingness to investigate and address mass atrocity crimes and serious human rights violations, but need additional technical support from the international community, in the light of the growing interest for this type of expert deployments.

Governance: JRR was created through an intergovernmental forum. Oversight and strategic direction for the work of the JRR facility is provided by an Executive Board that currently consists of nine States - Argentina; Canada; Colombia; Finland; the Netherlands; Sierra Leone; Sweden; Switzerland (Vice-Chair); and Uganda (Chair).

Where to find us: JRR has a small Secretariat based in Geneva, Switzerland, and well as liaison offices in New York and The Hague. For more information please visit the JRR website at www.justicerapidresponse.org.