The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) was established on 22 December 2010 by the United Nations Security Council to continue the jurisdiction, rights, obligations and essential functions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after the completion of their respective mandates.

The Mechanism — which in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1966 (2010) is “a small, temporary, and efficient structure” — started its operations on 1 July 2012 in Arusha (Tanzania) and on 1 July 2013 in The Hague (The Netherlands).

It has since then operated in parallel with the ICTR and the ICTY and will continue to operate after the Tribunals’ closure, maintaining the legacies of these two pioneering international criminal courts and serving as an example of best practices in the field of international criminal justice.