On Saturday, November 22, 2025, in the presence of a considerable number of judicial officials, judges, prosecutors, former and current MPs, representatives of governmental institutions, academic institutions, lawyers, CSOs and law students. The KCIL held its 3rd annual conference in Erbil province under the slogan “International Criminal Justice in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) – Consolidation and Application”, within the framework of justice resilience initiatives in the KRI, which is financially supported by the German Federal Foreign Office via Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA).

At the opening speech of the conference, the KCIL highlighted substantive outcomes that were yielded over 2024-2025, within the framework of justice resilience initiatives in the KRI. So far, the KCIL stressed forging multilateral approaches amongst the KRI judicial power and the Kurdistan parliament to take impactful strides for institutional reforms and advancing efforts in incising the rule of law in crisis prevention and enskinning fair trial principles within the KRI courts in line with international standards for the prosecution of international crimes and categorizing these crimes into the national penal code. The first panel was oriented towards international criminal justice in the KRI, which was moderated by Dr. Shiraz Ibrahim. During this panel, Dr. Mohammed Rashid, Dr. Annie Pius, Dr. Mohammed Janabi and Dr. Briar Baban presented their reflections on the latest legal developments accordingly. The panelists deliberated whether those mechanisms were taken by Iraqi and the KRI judicial institutions from a critical lens and put forward to endorsed approaches for evidence collection and classifying them during investigation phases at national level. In parallel, the mechanisms that should be considered following the mandate of UNITAD and UNAMI in Iraq in terms of applying UNITAD collected evidence within the Iraqi courts besides analyzing the challenges and means of addressing. 

The second panel of the conference was moderated by Dr. Hevi Hussein, concentrating on the consolidation of international criminal justice and the national judicial system. At the start of the panel, Dr. Simon Minks delivered on the importance of ICL prosecution in the national system. Respectively, Judge Joanna Korner highlighted the current challenges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the approaches that are required to be taken for case building and addressing the legal at the national level for international criminal justice. It is noteworthy that panelist Colonel Legal Officer Shaker Mirani mentioned the legal mechanisms taken by the KRI Commission for Investigation and Gathering Evidence (CIGE) for evidence collection and supporting the KRI courts during their investigation of those cases pertaining to international crimes. Upon the panel's conclusion, Luma Fadhil, spotlighted the role of National Center for International Judicial Cooperation, and she stressed enhancing synchronization of legal processes at the national level for evidence collection and investigation and prosecution of international crimes in Iraq and the KRI. Thus, the conference was concluded by giving a roof to the conference guests to convey their questions and recommendations, noted by the KCIL team for future lobbying and advocacy at governmental and CSOs levels.