In carrying out its multiple functions, the Mechanism maintains the legacies of these two pioneering ad hoc international criminal courts and strives to reflect best practices in the field of international criminal justice. 

With their case, the Mechanism was seeking answers to significant and complex questions including the roles of ad-hoc tribunals in transitional justice processes and preventing future genocide; and how IRCMT can enhance its impact. We spoke with Nenad Golčevski, External Relations Officer for IRMCT The Hague, about the Mechanism’s PRINS experience.

Q: What attracted you to working with Leiden University BA students to solve your case?
When I was initially approached to join the PRINS consultancy project, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, and I didn’t have a clear idea what the course is about.  But one of my colleagues had taken part in an earlier PRINS, and told me what it was about in broad strokes. It’s a great idea! The students have an opportunity to get an idea of what real life business issues and tasks are about, so the benefit for them was clear. But I also felt that there is a significant benefit for us, as an organisation. In our daily work we are focused on tasks immediately in front of us, we do a lot of administrative stuff, and we have deadlines. So there’s only a very small portion of our professional time that we can dedicate to literature reviews, and to looking into criticism, review or analysis of our work or work similar to that of our organisation.  We want a clear picture of the views of academia and other research initiatives on the issues we are dealing with.

 So I thought PRINS would be an opportunity for the Mechanism to present a question or a topic or issue that is very relevant for our work and that we are tackling not just on the short term but in a long term way; a chance to actually have a fresh insight into what we do.

We presented our case to a group of highly active, intelligent and well educated young people who can dedicate significant amounts of time to research and uncovering high quality academic input into the topic; and who gave us final pitches and reports which summarise a new and fresh look at the topics we deal with on a daily basis. PRINS was a great opportunity for us to get two types of added benefits – one a clear academic overview from literature that is related to the work we do; and secondly the opportunity for novel views and ideas from those who have delved deeply into our case.

Q: What added value do International Studies and Humanities students bring to your case?
Well, International Studies is in itself a multidisciplinary field of study which is also the type of work we do as a United Nations Agency. We are a court, of course, but as a court we deal with issues that are not just legal, but significantly touch upon cultural, political and social issues of the affected regions our cases deal with. So given that the nature of our work is multidisciplinary, there is a natural alignment with International Studies.

Q:  Why not go to a business school/management/public administration or development programme to find student consultants?
For me it is clear that students who come from different educational backgrounds and study a multidisciplinary field would certainly be in a very good position to approach the types of issues we presented. And I would actually think that International Studies students would be better prepared to deal with this kind of issue than someone with a focus on commercial and business affairs. Another benefit I see is that this is a programme of international students, these students come from all over the world, so in addition to bringing different educational backgrounds they also bring different national backgrounds. Those are two distinct perspectives they bring to their PRINS projects.

Q:  How were you inspired by these teams?
I was very inspired by what I heard.  I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t know what we’d do with what they submitted. When I received the briefs I saw how much effort went into them, and then during the pitches I could see how these students had gained a deep grasp of the issues and had caught on to very subtle and fine-tuned aspects of the problem. And four months ago they didn’t know anything about our organisation or much about transitional justice! So I was primarily impressed by their ability to go so deeply and with such an in-depth grasp of the topic. And then I was very much uplifted by their enthusiasm, their creativity, and also the recommendations they made for our organisation.

Q: What will your organisation do with the ideas/solutions that were presented?
I decided to share the team reports with all the colleagues at my office. We will prepare a kind of an extract of recommendations that the PRINS teams have come up with, and I would like us to have a kind of team meeting, in which we will actually go through each of those recommendations and consider the added value they might have for our future work.

Q: Based on what you saw during the pitching, do you have any career advice to help and inspire our students?
Actually at the borrel after the presentations I chatted with a lot of students. What I conveyed to them was that I understand how difficult and anxiety-producing it is to be completing your studies and imagining yourself in the real world – but from what I saw in their presentations, they shouldn’t worry. They have so much to offer in terms of not just education and the necessary intelligence for working in the field of international policy; but also in terms of dedication, in terms of their hard work, in terms of their ability to grasp a topic and deal with it. So basically I tried to convey that they can probably do whatever they want to do – it’s just up to them to choose the right thing.

Q: How would you summarise your PRINS experience?
I would say it was very refreshing, very pleasant trip out of the usual office routine and that it provided a very useful and interesting view from outside, and into our daily work.