Following up on my earlier posts about Saddam and Serbia:Prosecutors at Saddam's trial introduced two important documents yesterday. The first is a memo from the Revolutionary Court, dated June 14, 1984, listing the names of 148 suspects that had been sentenced to death by hanging. The chief prosecutor, Jaafar al-Moussawi, said the signature on the memo was that of...
In what could turn out to be a very important ruling, a Nigerian court in Port Harcourt has ordered Royal Dutch Shell to pay $1.5 billion for the environmental damage its oil-refining activities have caused in the southern Niger delta region. CorpWatch:Local residents began to experience health problems soon after Shell Oil company injected a million litres of a...
A report prepared for Mexico's President, Vicente Fox, has concluded that the Mexican government and military committed numerous crimes against humanity during its "scorched earth" campaign against alleged left-wing rebels between 1964 and 1982: The draft report's authors write: "The authoritarian attitude with which the Mexican state wished to control social dissent created a spiral of violence which...
The United Nations has released the text of its draft compromise on replacing the existing Human Rights Commission with a new Human Rights Council. Here are the key paragraphs:OP7 ...
Spain's Public Prosecutor has urged the Spanish Supreme Court to quash the conviction of Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, sentenced last year by a lower court to 15 years in prison for "conspiracy to commit terrorist murder" in connection with the September 11. The lower court concluded that sufficient evidence exists to prove that Yarkas helped an al Qaida cell...
When I wrote last week about the EU’s threat to suspend membership talks with Serbia if it does not find General Ratko Mladic and turn him over to the ICTY -- which it looks like it is about to -- I noted that the EU had successfully pursued a similar strategy to prod Croatia to arrest General Ante Gotovina, accused...
A few days ago I mentioned a report that prosecutors had produced written orders by Saddam ordering the execution of 140 Shiites in Dujail in 1982 -- the proverbial "smoking gun." As it turns out, the documents are not so damning after all. According to the AP, the prosecution produced two documents at trial Feb. 13-14: one that...
To follow up on Peggy's post about David Irving, it's worth noting that Article 6 of the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime contains the following controversial provision:1. Each Party shall adopt such legislative measures as may be necessary to establish the following conduct as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally and without...
The chief prosecutor in Saddam Hussein's trial said yesterday that Saddam could be executed "within months" if he is convicted -- which seems increasingly likely. Article 27 of the IST Statute provides that all sentences "must be executed within 30 days of the date when the judgment becomes final and non-appealable."The prosecutor's statement contradicts the assertion of some commentators...
According to SwissInfo, the United Nations is upset with Switzerland for amending its Code pénal militaire suisse to restrict the country’s ability to prosecute war crimes committed abroad. Article 2 of the Swiss Military Penal Code provides that military tribunals have jurisdiction over civilians or members of foreign forces who commit violations of international law during armed conflict. ...
The official languages of the ICTR are English and French. The vast majority of the 1,500 witnesses who have testified before the tribunal, however, speak only Kinyarawanda, the African-Bantu language that is the most widely-spoken language in Rwanda. As the Hirondelle News Agency reports in a fascinating article, the fact that most of the testimony heard by the...
