Can They Deliver?

Abstract

Joint Investigation Teams or JITs are practical mechanisms of cooperation that are established between two or more states to, jointly, conduct criminal investigations. Increasingly used in investigations into core international crimes (war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression), JITs are understudied in the field of international criminal law. This article examines how the procedures outlined in JIT legal frameworks are implemented in practice and assesses whether JITs can respond to the challenges of contemporary international crimes investigations. The article contends that, while JITs introduce some useful new cooperation processes, they fall short on many of their most promising features, which are difficult to implement fully in practice or in fact already exist.