After nearly two decades of conflict, the Democratic Republic of the Congo makes a regular appearance in international news. The most recent chapter of the story is the conflict between the Congolese government and the M23 rebel group which started in April 2012. The back and forth fighting since then displaced more than 300,000 people […]
Just a few weeks after France launched an intervention aimed at rooting out Islamist Ansar Dine rebels in northern Mali, French and Malian forces retook the historic desert city without resistance and to the cheers of local citizens. However, the city’s ten months under Islamic rule still had consequences, not just for the people living […]
As war continues to rage on in Syria with no signs of abating, there are renewed calls for the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute any international crimes they find there. Earlier this month, Switzerland led a group of more than 50 countries appealing to the Security Council for referral of the situation to […]
Charles Taylor was sentenced to fifty years in prison today by the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. The former Liberian President was found guilty on eleven counts last month including acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, other inhumane acts, conscripting or enlisting of child soldiers, […]
Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, has been convicted by an international tribunal in the Hague for aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone. Ten years after the cessation of violence there, Sierra Leone, now a democracy, is still a dismembered place: its youth has been wasted, its resources […]
As the world commemorates the Rwandan Genocide fugitives continue to evade justice. April marks the 18th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were massacred. Eighteen years later and nearly 1,000 fugitives are still at large around the world. At an event in Nairobi, Kenya over the weekend commemorating […]
News from Libya that torture is occurring in state and militia-administered detention facilities is horrific, but should be of little surprise. Amnesty International’s recent statements assert that torture is a wide-spread practice in Libya and has resulted in several deaths. The statements further that no investigations are occurring. Add to these statements a recent announcement by Medecins Sans […]
San Marino became the first nation to ratify an amendment proposed at the 2010 Kampala Review Conference of the Rome Statute, which governs the International Criminal Court. San Marino deposited its ratification of the amendment to Article 8 at U.N. Headquarters today becoming the first nation to ratify the amendment classifying the use of […]
Public gallery at the ECCC at the start of Case 002. Photo courtesy of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia On Monday, more than 32 years after the Khmer Rouge fell from power in Cambodia, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) started proceedings on Case 002. The defendants on trial, […]
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 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. […]
The Home Minister of Bangladesh, Sahara Khatun argued that there is no legal statute of limitations or moral force that prevents arresting those individuals considered war criminals. At a ceremony held at a college, Sahara Khatun claimed “They must be arrested… there is no need to issue new directives from the home ministry in this regard.” […]
A year after the Gaza War, the debate rages on about the conduct of forces on both sides during the three-week conflict. By now, major human rights organizations both in Israel and abroad have had their say in what crimes may have been committed during the war, and the UN released the results of their […]
With the holidays coming up and getting the 2009 Year in Review together, we have been a bit light on posting. However here are some links to a few of the human rights stories from this past week. Detained in Iran, Russia, and China Last week NPR reported on three human rights stories from Iran, […]
Things have been difficult for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), pretty much from the start. The one thing the UN-backed court charged with holding the leadership of the Khmer Rouge responsible for their crimes had going for it was that its first defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his nom de […]