Human rights NGO REDRESS has published a new report on victim participation in criminal proceedings relating to international crimes (‘the Report’). This is a comprehensive document juxtaposing the victim’s right to participate in such proceedings across 22 different jurisdictions.

Research for this project was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved desk-based research of the national law provisions in different countries. The second phase involved conducting interviews with practitioners from a number of different jurisdictions to complement and verify the results of the first phase. Oxford Pro Bono Public (‘OPBP’) provided valuable assistance in the first phase, and provided a comparison of victims’ rights in thirteen different jurisdictions (the OPBP project report is available here). OPBP’s contribution was useful in developing the findings in the Report is expressly acknowledged.

Part One provides the background to the project; Parts Two and Three deal with how a ‘victim’ is defined, and  documents the participation rights available to victims in different jurisdictions; Part Four describes the other rights available to victims and Part Five presents the conclusions.

We congratulate REDRESS in undertaking this much-needed research on an important topic. The Report will serve as a valuable resource for researchers, academics, practitioners and policy-makers interested in the topic.