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...
In a decision bound to upset the US government and most Americans, an Italian appellate court has upheld a lower court's acquittal of three North African men accused of recruiting suicide bombers to attack US soldiers in Iraq. The men had been charged with international terrorism, a crime adopted in Italy following 9/11. The appellate court ruled that, in the...
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is reporting that prosecutors in Saddam Hussein's trial have produced written orders allegedly signed by Saddam ordering the execution of 140 Shiites in Dujail in 1982. If so, the evidence provides the first concrete link between Saddam and the executions; although numerous witnesses have described how Iraqi 's security forces killed the Shiites in "response"...
On a (somewhat) lighter note, France’s Conseil Constitutionnel has struck down a provision in a 2005 law that required history teachers to stress the “positive aspects” of French colonialism. The Council, which was established in 1958 and is responsible for reviewing the consistency of Acts of Parliament with the Constitution, held that the enacting the provision was outside competence...
Given how unpopular the UN seems to be these days in the US, the results of a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll question about Iran are rather surprising (courtesy of Think Progress):How confident are you in the Bush administration’s ability to handle the situation in Iran? Very or Somewhat Likely: 45% Not Too Confident or Not At All Confident: 55% How...
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...
