From Amanda Bowen at Citizens for Global Solutions (WASHINGTON, D.C., June 28, 2011) In issuing an arrest warrant for Muammar Gaddafi, the International Criminal Court has demonstrated yet again that tyrants and human rights abusers around the world—even if they are heads of state–will not enjoy immunity from international law, and will be held responsible […]
Ratko Mladic was arrested today in Lazarevo, Serbia ending a sixteen year long manhunt (as predicted in our Year In Review article). He was the Serbian military commander responsible for the Srebrenica massacre in which over 7,000 Muslims were murdered, and has been labeled Europe’s most wanted war criminal. The two most notorious fugitive war […]
Last week the U.S. ‘took out’ Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. As an American, I cannot help but have a visceral reaction of delight. Such a major blow will surely expedite the end of ‘the war on terror’. Whatever your opinion is of that endeavor, we can all be relieved by its conclusion. If […]
Governments have attacked and killed civilian protesters across the Middle East. These attacks have resulted in action by the International Criminal Court and international military forces against Libya but inaction against similar atrocities in other Middle Eastern states. This discrepancy in response by the I.C.C., international community, and the U.S., have drawn cries of hypocrisy. […]
On friday Richard Goldstone walked back his important and controversial 2009 Goldstone Report on potential war crimes resulting from the Israeli incursion into Gaza earlier that year in a Washington Post Op-Ed. He held that while Palestinian crimes were ‘of course’ intentional, he did not want to second guess difficult decisions made by Israeli commanders […]
(From The Phnom Penh Post) By James O’Toole and Cheang Sokha Appeals in the case of former S-21 prison chief Kaing Guek Eav began at the Khmer Rouge tribunal yesterday with a contentious debate on the court’s jurisdiction and its right to try the accused, better known as Duch. Prosecutors, the defence and civil party […]
Last week Libya became the subject of official investigation by the International Criminal Court, the sixth since the court’s inception in 2002. There are three ways in which an investigation can be initiated by the Office of The Prosecutor; referral of a situation by a state party of the Rome Statute, referral from the U.N. […]
Stephen Rapp, the U.S. Ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, declared this week in Bangladesh that “(p)re-charging detention is not automatically a violation of international standards.” This statement could be taken innocuously – as arguably true; or it could be taken as an implicit nod of approval by the U.S. for the illegal detention and torture […]
In 2010 as might be expected, justice was brought to some and impunity enjoyed by others. The Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court opened preliminary investigations into possible war crimes involving the March sinking of the South Korean warship, Cheonan, and the November artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island by North Korea; religious […]
Notorious Rwandan war criminal Callixte Mbarushimana was arrested today in Paris after sixteen years of impunity. He was arrested after a sealed arrest warrant was issued by the ICC in late September. French authorities cooperated fully. Mbarushimana faces five counts of crimes against humanity (murder, torture, rape, inhumane acts and persecution) and six counts of […]
Four former heads of the Khmer Rouge were indicted today by the U.N. sanctioned Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The four charged with crimes of Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide among others, ranged in age from 78 to 85 years, and have managed to escape justice for at least 31 years. This […]
Judge Baltasar Garzon, a pioneer of universal jurisdiction against heads of state, was offered a job by the International Criminal Court today. This comes as Baltasar is being persecuted by far right groups in his home country of Spain. From the Office of the Prosecutor: “The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal […]
A version of this article appears at the website atlantic-community.org. The Atlantic Community is a foreign policy think tank based in Berlin and Washington D.C. International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is at a crossroads. Though first implemented to reduce war casualties and prevent atrocities, over the course of the last fifty years the nature of armed […]
A campaign has launched to get the U.N. to adopt a new crime, ‘ecocide’, into the Rome Statute as the fifth crime under its jurisdiction in addition to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression. The campaign is being run by a British U.N. activist, Polly Higgins that had a minor recent success with […]
The Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation is holding a conference in Buenos Aires next week from April 12-14. The conference, titled ‘Memory, Justice, Truth and Reparations as Tools for Genocide Prevention’, has been co-organized by the government of Argentina. It will host government officials and policymakers from 40 nations. I spoke today with AIPR’s […]