News Clips – October 15, 2010 – International Justice Resource Center

The loss of leading international human rights scholar Louis Henkin is mourned, while the legal community remembers his long career dedicated to the development of international law and the protection of human rights. [Human Rights First]

Moldova has ratified the Rome Statute to become the newest State Party to the International Criminal Court, bringing the total to 114. [UN]

Canadian citizen Omar Khadr may have reached a plea agreement with the U.S. government, ending his prosecution by a Military Commission at Guantánamo. [Human Rights First] Khadr was detained in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old and recently turned 24 while in U.S. custody. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has declined to confirm the status of Khadr’s case, but reports indicate that the deal would require Khadr to plead guilty to the war crimes charges against him – including murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy – and serve eight years in prison, the final seven years being served in Canada, contingent on the Canadian government’s agreement. [CBC News] Khadr’s case has drawn attention because of his young age, but also as one of a handful of cases in which Guantánamo detainees have argued that their home country governments have an obligation to use diplomacy to secure their nationals’ release from Guantánamo. See INTERIGHTS’ third party intervention in Boumediene before the ECHR for relevant jurisprudence and an example of the analysis used in such cases.

France has arrested Rwandan rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana, who is wanted by the ICC on charges that he committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo last year. [ICC; HRW]

Uzbekistan has convicted two journalists, Vladimir Berezovskii and Abdumalik Boboev, on defamation and insult charges in connection with articles written or made available by them which were critical of the Uzbek government’s policies; Boboev was ordered to pay a hefty fine. [VOA; HRW]

Kenya will no longer prosecute suspected Somali pirates captured by international forces, as it lets expire an agreement entered into last year with the European Union and several national governments. [Impunity Watch]

Indonesian President Yudhoyono cancelled his scheduled trip to the Netherlands last week due to a human rights suit filed in Dutch court against him by a Maluku separatist who was allegedly detained and severely beaten for showing a Maluku independence flag during a presidential speech in 2007. [VOA]

The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services has published a 105-page report on private security contractors in Afghanistan, calling for greater government oversight and contractor accountability. [Human Rights First]

Federal district court judge Virginia A. Phillips has granted the plaintiffs permanent injunctive relief against the government’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which had allowed the U.S. military to dismiss soldiers for revealing their homosexuality, upon finding that the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s substantive due process and free speech protections. [C.D. Cal.] The federal legislature has recently been deliberating repeal of DADT, but Senate Democrats were unable to overcome Republican opposition to the bill. [WSJ]

Human Rights Watch calls on the Rwandan government to protect the rights and safety of opposition leaders, in relation to the detention of the leaders of two Rwandan opposition parties. [HRW]

The IACHR has released its hearing schedule for 140^th Period of Sessions, to begin later this month. [IACHR] The Commission’s thematic hearings will address issues ranging from camps for the internally displaced in Haiti to prosecutions for crimes against humanity in Argentina, while the hearings on the admissibility and merits of individual cases will include that of Guantánamo detainee Djamel Ameziane. Livestreaming and/or recordings will be available for most hearings.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has urged the United States and Somalia to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as the only two remaining countries that have not done so since the treaty was opened for signature in 1989. [UN]

A Peruvian court has convicted Vladimiro Montesinos, former aide to ex-President Alberto Fujimori and de facto head of security, as well as members of the Colina death squad, on charges of extrajudicial killing and injury of 29 individuals in separate incidents, including the massacre of Barrios Altos. The court (Sala Penal Especial de la Corte Suprema de Justicia) found the acts constituted crimes against humanity, as it similarly found in the case of Alberto Fujimori. [CEJIL] The Barrios Altos case has been reviewed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which found Peru responsible for the deaths and lack of investigation or reparation (merits decision here).

Ecuador is receiving negative attention from NGOs and the UN as recent unrest has led the Ecuadorian government to crack down on freedom of the press and of expression. [UN]

UN peacekeepers and Democratic Republic of Congo forces have captured a DRC rebel leader accused of orchestrating the mass rape of more than 300 people two months ago. [UN]

South Africa’s majority party, the African National Congress, is considering pursuing a bill that would allow the government to imprison journalists for 3 to 25 years for publishing any information that impacts the “national interest”. [Impunity Watch]

Following the Nobel Committee’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, UN experts and others have called for his release from detention and respect for fundamental rights in China. [UN]

The UN has called for an investigation into the October 8^thdeath in custody of a man detained for throwing stones at DRC President Joseph Kabila’s motorcade last month. [UN]

ProPublica reports that the U.S. government significantly altered a federal judge’s decision granting a Guántanamo detainee’s habeas petition while reviewing the order for classified information, removing eight pages of the opinion, including the judge’s criticism of the government’s weak case, and changing key details to make the detainee appear more threatening. The changes were discovered because the court had published the judge’s original opinion online. [Democracy Now!]