EPQ

A war crimes tribunal are TRIALS in which PEOPLE ACCUSED of war crimes are tried in court for crimes against their state or another state.

They can include the likes of torture, genocide and ****.

My project is focused on looking at if those accused in the international war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh were given a fair trial, more specifically I've really looked at the concept of a fair trial with views from human rights organisations across the world.

(I'll talk about how that changed with the devlopment of my project)

It's come from a range of different sources- mainly news agencies and reports by human rights organisations etc. For example, here are a few

• The Guardian
• BBC news- which provided me with timelines of events, so helped my background knowledge evolve
• Amnesty international- which again, was wider reading and good for helping me back up, or disagree with opinions
• Steven Kay QC- he's a barrister who made a report, and within that report's footnotes- sourced every constitutional amendment that was made which to me, was a life saver in terms of time.
• If I hadn't gotten his report, I would have had to translate these 'laws' from bengali to english, because I couldn't find the ammendments online.

It made my project hugely accesible, most of it was from the internent.

I have specifically chosen to do this because it develops my interest in a subject I'm choosing to do next year- law, especially the concept of justice as it enables me to develop my interest by committing myself towards it.

Also, I remember seeing snippets of it in the news- and well, because I'm from there- I was naturally curious. This was a personal subject to me, even more so because it actually linked to what I want to do in the future. I want to be involved with human rights, natural rights and develop my understanding so I have the skills needed for univeristy.

I felt there were about 4 things that went well.

Organisation- Basic things like having a folder to put all my stuff in, to the more maybe challenging aspects of organisation like knowing what to do next- which is a bit of planning and organisation.

Reserarching went well- I tracked my progress overtime, and made sure to know what to research or at least had a brief idea of what research I would need to include.

Planning- I was quite pleased with my plan, and the ability that I had to change it. I'm a person who likes to meet deadlines, so to be honest- rarely, I changed them. But I did track how I felt about doing each topic of research which meant I knew where I was at in terms of confidence levels and what I would need to improve on.

Deadlines- I met both deadlines, which was something I was pleased with.

Although PLANNING was relatively okay, mainly because I'm the sort of person who sticks to a plan or actually, manages myself around a loose plan- I felt at times, I should have been more concise. I had subtopics to look at- but with week intervals between them, sometimes I sat there for 15 minutes thinking what to actually find that is relevant and that I can use.

At the begining of the EPQ, I found myself not concisely researching which effected how productive I was- bearing in mind I had 3 other subjects to get to grips with, and had set myself the huge task of actually researching laws which at first I had no clue of what to make of.

Write up- my first draft only had a bullet point plan, which normally works for me- but this time, I felt it didn't and as  a result, the structure of my argument was flawed. I also wasn't looking at the various definitions of a fair trial properly.

Understanding- This links into researching, the hardest part of the planning and research process was, as a person who was never studied law, trying to grasp what is meant and what this means. Luckily, the report by Steven Kay guided me.

PLANNING- BETTER.

CONCISE.

ITS OKAY TO CHANGE PLANS.

ORGANISATION- ALWAYS WORKS. SOMETHING THAT I BELIEVE REALLY REDUCES STRESS.

CHECKING MY WORK- I THINK ITS A HABIT I STILL NEED TO GRASP, BUT HAVE LEARNT CHECKING WORK IS VERY CRUCIAL

2009- GOVERNMENT SET UP A WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL TO TRY THOSE ACCUSED AFTER 1971

PROSECUTION- CONSTITUTION RIGHTS WITHDRAWN

ACCUSED DIDN'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE SILENT, ONLY THE PROSECUTION COULD ASK QUESTIONS

THERE HAS BEEN OUTRAGE FROM HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS AROUND THE WORLD