Alison Bisset

• University of Reading

The Mutual Legal Assistance Initiative ( mlai ) was established to fill the widely acknowledged gap that currently exists within the international legal framework on inter-state cooperation in the prosecution of international crimes. Recent drafts of the mla Convention are concerned not only with mutual legal assistance and extradition, but a serie...

In the aftermath of conflict, four key approaches have emerged for responding to past violence and violations of human rights. Together, trials, truth seeking, reparation and reform—the so-called four pillars of transitional justice—are considered to provide post-conflict states with the best possibilities for healing, repair and sustainable peace....

The detention of children of Islamic State within Kurdish-controlled camps in Syria presents a complex dilemma for national authorities and the international community. Although a small number of states have repatriated their nationals, overall, little progress has been made and thousands of children continue to languish in deplorable conditions. R...

Despite their fundamental importance in the effective prosecution of international crimes, inter-state judicial cooperation regimes have long been overlooked. However, two new initiatives have recently emerged. The first is the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on Crimes against Humanity (Draft Articles), which aims to create a global c...

In recent times, transitional justice practice has increasingly seen truth commissions tasked with administering accountability programmes, distinct from, and in addition to, their traditional truth-seeking role. Such accountability schemes typically take the form of granting or recommending amnesty for those who disclose involvement in past crimes...

This detailed evaluation of the relationship between trials and truth commissions challenges their assumed compatibility through an analysis of their operational features at national, inter-state and international levels. Alison Bisset conducts case-study analyses of national practice in South Africa, East Timor and Sierra Leone, evaluates the prob...

Truth commissions and criminal trials have come to be perceived as complementary transitional justice mechanisms. However, where effective prosecutions are dependent on the exchange of information and transfer of suspects between states under existing mutual legal assistance and extradition arrangements, the operation of a truth commission in the s...

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is silent on the issue of national truth commissions. How the ICC might treat these bodies and the information they may hold is uncertain. The overlapping nature of the investigations likely to be carried out by the ICC and future truth-seeking bodies may, however, give rise to areas of ten...