security & rule of law – Page 4 – International Justice Resource Center

African Commission to Review Eight States’ Human Rights Records

March 25, 2015 IJRC African System, civil society, conditions of detention, death penalty, democracy & political rights, discrimination, economic, social & cultural rights, human rights defenders, immigration & asylum, indigenous communities, international human rights, judicial independence, liberty & security of person, persons with disabilities, reproductive and sexual rights, security & rule of law, thought, expression & association, torture, women's rights

The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) will open its 56th Ordinary Session on April 21, 2015 in Banjul, the Gambia. During this session, which continues through May 7, the Commission’s agenda includes discussion of the human rights situation in Africa, consideration of State reports, and hearing activity reports from members of the Commission and its special mechanisms. This

March 2015 Newsletter: New Team Members, Human Rights News

March 16, 2015 IJRC economic, social & cultural rights, human rights defenders, IJRC Newsletter, IJRC Updates, international criminal law, international human rights, international humanitarian law, regional human rights protection, security & rule of law, Universal system, women's rights

Inter-American Commission to Hold 55 Human Rights Hearings in March

March 11, 2015 IJRC armed conflict, children, civil society, conditions of detention, crime & impunity, death penalty, democracy & political rights, discrimination, due process & judicial protection, economic, social & cultural rights, human rights defenders, immigration & asylum, indigenous communities, Inter-American System, international human rights, international humanitarian law, judicial independence, labor rights, LGBTI rights, liberty & security of person, persons with disabilities, property, reparations, security & rule of law, thought, expression & association, transitional justice, women's rights

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is holding its 154th regular session from March 13 to 27, 2015 at IACHR headquarters in Washington, D.C. The agenda includes public hearings on March 16, 17, 19 and 20. [IACHR Press Release] The hearings allow both States and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to provide the IACHR with information and context on 55 human

UN Working Group on Right to Peace Holds Informal Consultations

February 4, 2015 IJRC armed conflict, civil society, international humanitarian law, military and humanitarian intervention, security & rule of law, UN Human Rights Council

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

Former Guatemalan Police Chief Convicted for Spanish Embassy Siege

January 22, 2015 IJRC armed conflict, domestic courts, enforced disappearance, extrajudicial executions, human rights defenders, indigenous communities, Inter-American System, international criminal law, liberty & security of person, security & rule of law, universal jurisdiction

On January 19, a Guatemalan court found Pedro García Arredondo, a former police chief, guilty of murder and crimes against humanity for his role in authorities’ attack on the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City in 1980. In this attack, 37 protesters burned to death when the Spanish embassy building caught fire and García Arredondo ordered the building to be sealed

Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Mandate Extended by Three Years

January 13, 2015 IJRC armed conflict, crime & impunity, due process & judicial protection, international criminal law, internationalized criminal tribunals, security & rule of law, transitional justice

This month, United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon extended the mandate of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) for an additional three years beginning on March 1, 2015. The STL was established in the aftermath of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s assassination and the deaths of 22 others in 2005. [UN News Centre] The extension of the STL’s mandate

Landmark Arms Trade Treaty Enters into Force

December 29, 2014 IJRC armed conflict, international human rights, international humanitarian law, military and humanitarian intervention, security & rule of law, Universal system

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

The U.S. appears before the Committee Against Torture

Human Rights Experts Call for Prosecution, Reparations in Wake of U.S. Torture Report

December 16, 2014 IJRC crime & impunity, Inter-American System, liberty & security of person, reparations, security & rule of law, torture, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Procedures, UN treaty bodies, universal jurisdiction

On Tuesday, December 9, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Intelligence Committee) published a report detailing the “abuses and countless mistakes” of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) detention and interrogation program in the years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. See Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program:

Extraordinary Rendition Victim Seeks Reconsideration from ACHPR in Djibouti Complaint

December 5, 2014 IJRC African System, due process & judicial protection, liberty & security of person, security & rule of law, Uncategorized

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has rejected a complaint concerning Djibouti’s alleged involvement in the extraordinary rendition and mistreatment of a Yemeni national, in an inadmissibility decision released last month. See ACommHPR, Mohammed Abdullah Saleh Al-Asad v. Djibouti, Communication No. 383/2010, 55th Ordinary Session, 14 October 2014. The Commission held that evidence pointing to the wrongful detention of Mohammed Abdullah

As Blackwater Security Guards Are Convicted for Nisour Square Killings, UN Working Group Pushes for Enhanced Regulation of Private Security Companies

October 29, 2014 IJRC corporate accountability, crime & impunity, extrajudicial executions, international humanitarian law, massacres, military and humanitarian intervention, security & rule of law, U.S. courts, UN Special Procedures

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