Mr. Ashcroft said he was confident that the rules for such tribunals, when developed, would be fair.
A new online Virtual Tribunals resource developed by Stanford Libraries in collaboration with the WSD HANDA Center for Human Rights and International Justice has launched, making records from 105 cases investigated by the Special Panel for Serious Crimes (SPSC) in East Timor widely accessible.
International war-crimes tribunals have developed a flat, repetitive narrative over the years, often with unsatisfying conclusions.
A UK conflict tribunal could be developed within the parameters of British, European and international law with a streamlined process.
For all the critiques of the ICC's first ten years, in comparison to other international tribunals and even developed national judiciaries, the Court has accomplished a remarkable amount, while it remains very cognizant of how it must improve.
The tribunal was based on the model developed by a private international war crimes tribunal established in 1966 by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre to investigate the US war record in Vietnam.
"The tribunal and local courts never developed a clear idea of who their clientele was, never took enough of an interest in articulating or addressing the concerns of victims, or explaining to the local public what was being established and what it meant".
But he said, since then the FOI tribunal had suggested it only applied while policy was being developed, not afterwards: "That is crazy and it's not remotely what was intended".
This system was developed in agreement with HMRC, after it won a landmark tribunal victory against Birmingham City a decade ago.
To allow such a court to falter for lack of funds would fly in the face of the "no impunity" message that has developed progressively through nearly two decades of international criminal tribunals.
