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Melanie O’Brien is a Research Fellow at CEPS’ Griffith node. She completed her PhD on national and international prosecution of peacekeepers for sexual exploitation and abuse at the University of Nottingham, UK; and has an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Lund in Sweden. Her research and supervision areas include peacekeeping, international criminal law, international humanitarian law, human rights, feminist legal theory, public international law, comparative criminal law, and military law.

She has published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Conflict and Security Law, and the International Criminal Law Review. She is a member of the Australian Committee of the Armed Forces Law Association of New Zealand, and the Emerging Scholars Committee of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Melanie’s previous work includes the Legal Advisory Section of the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court; the International Criminal Justice Unit of the Nottingham University Human Rights Law Centre; and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Guilt admissions are a vital element of both preventing and coping with genocide. Guilt admissions can provide us with an insight into why such crimes were committed, and can be a coping mechanism for both victim and perpetrator. Many factors could influence a perpetrator to confess. These may be psychological, anthropological, or sociological, such as a perpetrator’s upbringing or personality. However, there are other elements in the criminal justice process that may influence admissions of guilt, including the interview and questioning process.
 
Persons who work at international courts and tribunals come from a variety of backgrounds. National training and experience inevitably influence investigators and prosecutors. A variety of interview techniques exist, some which are recognised as being more successful in criminal interrogations and confessions, for example, cognitive interviewing. These differences may impact significantly on whether perpetrators confess.
 
This seminar will discuss Dr. O’Brien’s inter-disciplinary study of interview techniques in international criminal courts and tribunals, seeking to address some pertinent issues with regards to interviewing suspects and insider witnesses. Such issues include the specific difficulties faced by investigators with regards to interviewing suspects and insider witnesses of international crimes that do not exist in the domestic context of ‘ordinary’ crimes. This analysis is undertaken through domestic interview techniques analysis, and interviews by the author with investigators and lawyers from one or more of the international tribunals or courts. This seminar is based on a project that aims to ultimately assist practitioners in international criminal justice to increase their success in prosecutions, and contribute to an increase in guilt admissions.