Germany recently began its first prosecution for alleged war crimes in Syria, joining the several States and private actors seeking accountability for atrocities committed in the ongoing conflict in Syria. [The New Arab] Despite the lack of a final peace agreement, human rights experts are encouraging State governments to take steps to bring to justice those responsible for war crimes
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We are pleased to share with you an overview of the latest human rights developments and a summary of IJRC’s recent activities, in this April 2016 edition of the IJRC newsletter. Click here to open the newsletter in PDF.
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The United Nations Human Rights Committee has found Australia in violation of the right to liberty protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) due to its continued detention of Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks following his transfer to Australia, despite evidence that the American military proceedings against him had been unfair. See UN Human Rights Committee, Hicks v. Australia,
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A recent report from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (COI) has revealed that all sides to the conflict in Syria have subjected those captured, kidnapped, or arrested to violence and rights abuses that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. See UN Human Rights Council, Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Deaths in
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The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week authorized the Office of the Prosecutor to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in South Ossetia from July 1 to October 10, 2008 during the armed conflict between Georgia and Russia. [ICC Press Release] According to the ICC Prosecutor, between 13,400 and 18,500 ethnic Georgians were forcibly displaced and the ethnic Georgian
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Amid recent developments, legal experts have both lauded and criticized the proceedings of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the tribunal established jointly by Cambodia and the United Nations to prosecute those most responsible for crimes against humanity and other atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. While welcoming progress that has included charges against
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On December 15, 2015, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) overturned the Trial Chamber’s decision to acquit two high-level Serbian government officials charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the forced displacement of non-Serbs from Bosnia and Croatia, and ordered their retrial. The officials, Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović,
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After more than 20 years of prosecuting those most responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has issued its final judgment and closed its doors. [The Citizen] In its forty-fifth and final judgment, delivered on December 14, 2015, the Appeals Chamber decided appeals from six defendants previously convicted by the Trial Chamber. [BBC]
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A new database aims to increase access to the proceedings, evidence, decisions, and orders of the international tribunal created to prosecute those most responsible for the commission of international crimes during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. On December 3, 2015, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) launched the Judicial Records and Archives Database (JRAD) to facilitate public access to
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On November 12, 2015, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), published her annual Report on Preliminary Examination Activities (2015), which details the preliminary examination activities conducted by her office between November 1, 2014 and October 31, 2015. These included two situations – Georgia and Honduras – in which the Office of the Prosecutor (OPT) has concluded its
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