Several international jurisdictions for the prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide have been established since 1993. Of these, only the International Criminal Court (ICC) is permanent. It can investigate and prosecute only when national jurisdictions are unable or unwilling to do so genuinely. Strengthening such national ability is the primary purpose of the Case Matrix Network (CMN), an independent international non-profit organization. The cost-efficiency and quality of justice for atrocities are improved by empowering the national professionals involved. It is also important to develop further the capacity of civil society organizations to document professionally serious human rights violations that may amount to core international crimes.

As described in the next section ('Services'), the CMN's services fall in two distinct but related groups. The CMN takes its name from the first of these groups, namely services linked to the Case Matrix application and the Legal Tools Database, tools developed by the ICC. They transfer legal information and knowledge from the international criminal jurisdictions to the national level. Users of the Case Matrix application can freely access some 7,500 pages of digest of more than 52,000 documents in international criminal law. And they can use it to organize serious crimes case files and evidence.

But the CMN is also an open platform for a second category of services, described in more detail in the 'Services' section. These services include technical advice on war crimes prosecution strategy, organization of work, development of investigation and work plans, their implementation, and drafting of requisite legislation. The range of services is expanding. CMN experts advise public criminal justice agencies, legal services and non-governmental organizations, on a confidential basis. They are active in many countries, civil law and common law, on five continents. 

The CMN services have been developed through meticulous study of work processes in numerous international and national criminal justice agencies, as well as non-governmental organizations. They promote practical legal empowerment, especially in materially less resourceful countries, without creating dependency on outside actors.

This website provides basic information about the CMN to the public. It is also a co-ordination tool for the professionals who provide category 2 services through the Network.

Morten Bergsmo directs the CMN. In a separate capacity he is the ICC Legal Tools Project Co-ordinator. He uses this website and its sub-sites as a management platform for some of his activities as Project Co-ordinator (the category 1 services in the next section). But the CMN and this website are independent of the ICC. The ICC has no responsibility for information on the site.