Though the news is a couple of weeks old, it’s worth calling attention to a unanimous decision by the European Court of Human Rights Court that the Russian Federation violated the European Convention on Human Rights by allowing local police to torture a Russian citizen, Aleksey Mikheyev, and by subsequently failing to adequately investigate his allegations of mistreatment. The...
I completely agree with Julian's dire assessment of the UN Human Rights Commission. But before we get too carried away lauding the U.S.'s reform efforts, it's worth noting that Ambassador Bolton's most recent suggestion for "reform" is to guarantee all five permanent members of the Security Council permanent seats (presumably with veto power) on the new Human Rights Council,...
The U.S. media have done a decent job covering Serbia’s admission that hard-liners in its military are hiding war-crimes suspect General Ratko Mladic, wanted by the ICTY for allegedly orchestrating the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica. There has been relatively little coverage, however, of a particularly interesting aspect of the story: the European Union’s...
The UN and the Cambodian government have set up an administrative office in Phnom Penh for the hybrid tribunal that will try former leaders of the Khmer Rouge, who are accused of murdering nearly 2 million people during the 1970s. The establishment of the office marks the transition from the planning stage to the actual functioning of...
Strange bedfellows indeed. Yahoo News reports that the United States recently voted in favor of an Iranian initiative to deny UN consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBT). In May, 2005, two LGBT organizations – the International Gay and Lesbian Association and the Danish National...
In an era in which transnational corporations have become wealthier and more powerful than many countries – GM alone is worth more than 120 – it’s easy to dismiss anti-corporate political activism as naïve, anachronistic, and doomed to failure. But that’s not always true. Case in point: the Bechtel Corporation’s recent abandonment of its claim against Bolivia in...
The Appeals Chamber of the ICTR has unanimously upheld a Trial Chamber's acquittal of Andre Ntagerura and Emmanuel Bagambiki, two high-ranking Rwandan officials, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. The charges stemmed from a series of massacres committed in Rwanda's Cyangugu Province in 1994 that killed more than 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis. The Trial Chamber held...
Lest Roger win the competition for the most unusual story of the day, gameindustry.biz is reporting that the Red Cross has been contacting videogame developers to protest the use of its symbols in their games. Such use is widespread:Just about every video game that involves combat uses the Red Cross symbol in some form or fashion. From...
President Bush has often insisted that “if you harbor a terrorist, you’re equally as guilty as the terrorists.” In that regard, it’s instructive to consider the ongoing extradition battle between Venezuela and the United States over Luis Posada Carriles, who is currently being held in federal detention in Texas. By any definition, Posada richly deserves the description “terrorist,” yet the...
In my initial post yesterday, I discussed some of the ways international tribunals limit the right of defendants to an effective defense. That difficulty, not surprisingly, is not unique to the tribunals; national criminal prosecutions that apply international law – substantively and procedurally – are usually no better, and are often far worse. The current trial...
On January 26th, the Assembly of State Parties to the International Criminal Court elected six judges to serve nine-year terms. This is the second such election; 18 judges were elected in 2003, six for three-year terms, six for six-year terms, and six for nine-year terms. With the exception of Ekaterina Trendafilova of Bulgaria, the five other judges were...
In an interesting counterpoint to Roger’s post on the conviction of Abu Hamza, Reuters reports that Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has ordered the release of Mounir el Motassadeq, the first person to be convicted in connection with the attacks on 9/11, pending resolution of defense and prosecution appeals. The court agreed with el Motassadeq’s lawyers that the Hamburg judges...
