Office of War Crimes Issues

The Office of Global Criminal Justice (J/GCJ), formerly called the Office of War Crimes Issues (S/WCI), is an office within the United States Department of State.

The Office is headed by the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, currently Stephen Rapp. In that position, he advises the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Human Rights, and Democracy and works to formulate U.S. policy on prevention and accountability for mass atrocities.

The Office coordinates U.S. government support for ad hoc and international courts currently trying persons accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed (among other places) in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, and helps bolster the capacity of domestic judicial systems to try atrocity crimes. It also works closely with other governments, international institutions, and non-governmental organizations to establish and assist international and domestic commissions, courts, and tribunals to investigate, judge, and deter atrocity crimes in every region of the globe. The Ambassador-at-Large coordinates the deployment of a range of diplomatic, legal, economic, military, and intelligence tools to help expose the truth, judge those responsible, protect and assist victims, enable reconciliation, and build the rule of law.

The current United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice is Stephen Rapp.

Famous quotes containing the words office of, office, war, crimes and/or issues:

    This happy breed of men, this little world,
    This precious stone set in the silver sea,
    Which serves it in the office of a wall,
    Or as a moat defensive to a house,
    Against the envy of less happier lands,
    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
    Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

    “... War on the destiny of man!
    Doom on the sun!”
    Before death takes you, O take back this.
    Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)

    The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature—were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

    How to attain sufficient clarity of thought to meet the terrifying issues now facing us, before it is too late, is ... important. Of one thing I feel reasonably sure: we can’t stop to discuss whether the table has or hasn’t legs when the house is burning down over our heads. Nor do the classics per se seem to furnish the kind of education which fits people to cope with a fast-changing civilization.
    Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)