On January 30, 2015, the United Nations Human Rights Council Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on the Draft United Nations Declaration on the Right to Peace held informal consultations with non-governmental organizations and Member States in preparation for the third session of the Working Group, which is scheduled for April 20 to 24, 2015. [Human Rights Centre of the University of
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The retrial of former Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt reopened on January 5, 2015, but was quickly suspended. [La Prensa; BBC] Charged with committing genocide and crimes against humanity against indigenous Ixil Maya of the Quiché region, the 88-year-old ex-army general is allegedly responsible for 15 massacres carried out against indigenous Mayans during his rule from 1982 to 1983,
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On December 24, 2014, the watershed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) entered into force. The treaty, which is the first international instrument regulating the trade in conventional arms, creates a human rights framework to govern transfers of conventional arms, with the goal of curbing the flow of weapons that may be used to perpetrate human rights violations and crimes
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On December 5, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, withdrew the charges against Uhuru Kenyatta, the current President of Kenya, who is accused of having committed crimes against humanity committed during Kenya’s 2007-2008 election violence. The newly-withdrawn charges alleged that Kenyatta was criminally responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator of crimes against humanity, including murder, deportation or
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On November 20, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgment in the case of Jaloud v. the Netherlands, concerning the shooting death of an Iraqi national, Azhar Sabah Jaloud, at a military checkpoint overseen by Dutch troops serving as part of the Stabilisation Force in Iraq (SFIR) in April 2004. [ECtHR] The case is significant because it
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Fourteen States had their human rights records examined during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group’s 20th session in Geneva, Switzerland from October 27 to November 7. [OHCHR Press Release] At the 20th session, Italy, El Salvador, Gambia, Bolivia, Fiji, San Marino, Kazakhstan, Angola, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Madagascar, Iraq, Slovenia, Egypt, and Bosnia and Herzegovina all reported on the challenges and successes encountered
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Last week, South Africa and Argentina took major steps forward in the investigation and prosecution of alleged perpetrators of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and Spain, respectively. On October 30, the South African Constitutional Court unanimously ruled that the South African Police Service is obligated to investigate crimes against humanity, including torture, committed by Zimbabwean police in March 2007. [SALC
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On October 22, jurors in a United States federal district court found four former Blackwater security guards guilty of first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter for the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis on September 16, 2007. The killings occurred while a team of security guards – code-named Raven 23 – employed by the private security company escorted a U.S. State Department
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Last week, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, announced the opening of a second investigation into the Central African Republic (CAR), this time with respect to alleged international crimes committed since late 2012. More than 5,000 people have died in recent months due to sectarian fighting in the country. “The list of atrocities is endless. I
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On September 16, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its Grand Chamber judgment in Hassan v. United Kingdom, which involved the detention of an Iraqi national, Tarek Hassan, by the British army in Iraq in 2003. The applicant alleged that the United Kingdom was responsible for Tarek’s unlawful detention, ill-treatment, and death. The key issues before the Court were whether
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