In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Human Rights Law

10 Jan

[Oliver Windridge is a British lawyer specialising in international human rights and international criminal law, currently based in The Hague, Netherlands. He is founder of the blog The ACtHPR Monitor, on twitter @acthpr_monitor. In June 2014 Oliver was one of five non-African lawyers to be appointed to the Court’s inaugural List of Counsel (pro bono). The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation affiliated to the author.] Many readers will be familiar with the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights. For those who are not the Court was established by the African Union to hear cases relating to alleged violations of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Charter) and other international human rights instruments. The Court is based is in Arusha, Tanzania and is separate to the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights. What follows is a summary of the Court’s activity in 2014. March: the Court’s 32nd Ordinary Session At its 32nd Ordinary Session, the Court conducted the public hearing in Konate v. Burkina Faso. The Applicant, working as editor of the weekly newspaper L’Ouraganin, published two articles which lead to his convicted for defamation, public insult and insulting a magistrate. He was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment and handed large fines. The Applicant argued that his conviction and punishment contravened his right to freedom of expression as protected under Article 9 of the Charter and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Court also rendered three judgments. The first, Zongo and others v. Burkina Faso, related to the alleged assassination of Norbert Zongo an investigative journalist and Director of the weekly paper l’Indépendent and three colleagues in December 1998. The Applicant argued that following the alleged assassination the local authorities had failed to mount a proper investigation and failed to act with due diligence in seeking, trying and judging those involved in the death of Zongo and his companions. In only the second case to be decided on its merits, the Court found that Burkina Faso had indeed failed to take measures to ensure the Applicants right to be heard by a competent national court, therefore violating articles 1, 7, 9(2) of the Charter and Article 66 of the ECOWAS Treaty. Reparations are to be decided after further submissions from the parties. The second and third cases, Omary and others v. Tanzania involving an application by former East African Commission employees who had not received promised reparations, pension and severance benefits when the then East African Community was disbanded in 1984, and Chacha v. Tanzania, concerning the Applicant’s alleged unlawful arrest, detention, charging and imprisonment contrary to Tanzanian laws, were both declared inadmissible due to the Applicant’s failure to exhaust local remedies. The Court also considered its first application for interpretation and review of a previous Judgment. In June 2013 the Court had found the case of Mkandawire v. Malawi inadmissible due to the Applicant’s failure to exhaust local remedies. The Applicant made an application to the Court for review and interpretation of the Judgement. The Court ruled that the application for interpretation could not be entertained because “interpretation” as found in the Protocol and rules of the Court can only be sought for the purposes of executing a judgement. Since the case was dismissed due to non-exhaustion of local remedies there was no judgement to interpret. As to the application to review, the Court found the application inaccurately cited key paragraphs of its earlier judgement which were the subject of the review application. In addition evidence provided by the Applicant which he argued was new was known to him at the time the Court handed down its judgement and was therefore neither new or evidence. June: movement toward the African Court of Justice and Human Rights The Court, or at least the future guise of the Court, came into the spotlight in June after the African Union met in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea where it adopted the Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. (Incidentally, Equatorial Guinea has not signed the Protocol establishing the existing Court). This Protocol has been the subject of much comment and debate, in particular for its amendment to Article 46A bis of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court which imparts immunity against criminal charges for acting heads of state or government and other senior state officials. We also learned a little more of the new court’s ambitious proposed structure consisting of a “general” chamber handling trade issues and conflict between states, a “human rights chamber” handling work similar to the current Court and “criminal chamber”. For more comment on the immunity amendment see Paul Bradfield’s piece here, and Mark Kersten’s piece here. A press conference by Legal Counsel for the African Union Vincent Nmehielle on the new court, including the issue of immunity, can be seen here. Please note that the press conference does not start until about 6 minutes in, so best to skip forward. June: Mtikila ruling on reparations Also in June, the Court rendered its first ever ruling on reparations in Mtikila v. Tanzania. The case centered on Tanzanian laws that require candidates running for local government, parliamentary and presidential elections to be members of a registered political party, effectively barring independent candidates. In June 2013 the Court delivered its judgment, unanimously finding Tanzania’s ban on independent candidates had violated the Applicant’s Article 10 and 13(1) Charter rights and, by majority, that the same ban violated the Applicant’s Article 2 and 3 Charter rights. The judgment can be read here. My summary and analysis of the case can be seen here. The issue of reparations was postponed in order that both parties could make additional submissions. In its ruling the Court found there exists a fundamental principle of international law that where a violation of an “international obligation” causes harm, there entails an obligation to provide adequate reparation which the Court should follow and is reflected in Article 27(1) of the Court’s Protocol. The Court found that applying this principle, pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages and legal expenses were capable of being awarded by the Court, but that the Applicant had failed to provide evidence of a link between the damages and expenses claimed and the claim itself. In addition, the Court also examined Tanzania’a compliance with the June 2013 judgment noting that in Tanzania’s reply to damages it continued to maintain that the judgment was wrong, since the law in Tanzania prohibits independent candidates from running for election. The Court expressed its “concern” at this line of argument which was compounded by Tanzania’s failure to report to the Court on the measures it is taking to comply with the Judgment. Consequently, it ordered that within six months Tanzania should: (i) publish the official English translation translated into Kiswahili at Tanzania’s expense and publish in both English and Kiswahili once in the official gazette and once in a national newspaper; and (ii) publish the Judgment it its entirety in English on an official website and remain available for one year. The Court ordered that nine months from the ruling Tanzania should submit to the Court a report ion the above measures.
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07 Jan

I have posted a long new essay on SSRN, my contribution to a fantastic collection of essays that OJ's own Jens Ohlin is editing for Cambridge University Press, The Theoretical Boundaries of Armed Conflict & Human Rights. The essay is entitled "The Use and Abuse of Analogy in IHL," and here is the abstract: It is a truism to say that...

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03 Jan

H-Diplo, part of H-Net, recently hosted a virtual roundtable on David Bosco's excellent book Rough Justice:The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics, published by Oxford last year. Erik Vroeten introduced the roundtable, and Sam Moyn, David Kaye, and I submitted reviews. David then wrote a response. Here is a snippet from Erik's introduction: It is my pleasure to...

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23 Dec

[Catherine Harwood is a PhD candidate at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University] After over a decade of reports alerting the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to serious human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), in March 2013 the Council decided to establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate those allegations and to ensure “full accountability, in particular where these violations may amount to crimes against humanity”. Denied access to North Korea, the Commission travelled to several countries to hear from victims and witnesses. In a strong commitment to transparency, the Commission held public hearings and made many testimonies and exhibits available online. A year later, its report recorded a litany of serious human right abuses. The Commission found reasonable grounds to believe that North Korea had committed serious human rights violations and that many senior officials had committed crimes against humanity [para. 1225]. It issued a host of recommendations, including that the Security Council refer North Korea, a non-state party to the Rome Statute, to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although the Commission dissolved upon the delivery of its report, its accountability recommendations reverberated beyond the HRC and have remained on the intergovernmental diplomatic agenda. This contribution discusses some interesting features of the Commission’s findings and tracks the consequences of its report – some of which have been curious and unexpected – before offering some thoughts as to the impact of the inquiry in relation to the goal of ensuring accountability.
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16 Dec

Christopher Kutz, Professor of Law in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at Berkeley Law School, has a fascinating new essay examining the possibility that "norms" against torture and assassination have died in the United States in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.  Kutz is not writing to support the CIA interrogation program or the US government's use of assassination, but he...

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15 Dec

The new blog, which will focus on "multilateralism, international organizations, and world order" -- no small task there! -- includes Friends-of-OJ David Bosco and David Kaye, as well as my SOAS colleague Leslie Vinjamuri. Here is the complete contributor list: David Bosco is an assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine. Martin Edwards is...

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12 Dec

This is quite big news, and I hope it doesn't get lost in the welter of voices discussing the collapse of the Kenyatta prosecution. Here is a snippet from the Washington Post: The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court told the U.N. Security Council on Friday she is stopping her investigations in Sudan’s chaotic Darfur region for now because no one...

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10 Dec

It so happens that I have been researching the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the same time that the Senate has published an alarming report of abuse and torture committed by Americans in the name of national security. Without equating South African apartheid with the Bush Administration's policies and practices, I thought that a few insights from...

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09 Dec

I am very rarely shocked, but that was my response to yesterday's editorial in the New York Times by Anthony Romero -- the Executive Director of the ACLU -- arguing that Obama should pre-emptively pardon all of the high-ranking officials responsible for the Bush administration's systematic torture regime at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, various Eastern European black sites, etc. Here is a...

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09 Dec

[Eric C. Sigmund is a legal advisor for the international humanitarian law program at the American Red Cross.  He is a 2012 graduate of Syracuse University College of Law and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.  All opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the American Red Cross.] Recently, Kevin Jon Heller published a short piece on Opinion Juris entitled Why Can’t US Courts Understand IHL?  The piece, which addresses Al Warafi v. Obama, suggests that the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, as well as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals misunderstood and misapplied international humanitarian law as it denied Al Warafi’s habeas petition.  Heller, who seems both exasperated by the misapplication of the law but also sobered by the inevitability of this fact, posits that the Courts ignore clear language governing whether Al Warafi’s was required to carry or wear official identification demonstrating that he was protected as “medical personnel exclusively engaged in the search for, or the collection, or treatment of the wounded or sick, or in the prevention of disease…” as provided in Article 24 of the First Geneva Convention of 1949 (GC I).  While noteworthy, it is Michael Schmitt’s short comment to the post which raises a bigger question about the misapplication of the law and suggests that the Courts weren’t looking in the right place to begin with. A more comprehensive description of the facts of the case can be found elsewhere but I’ll recap a few to provide context.  Mukhtar Yahia Naji Al Warafi was detained shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan by U.S. and Coalition forces in October 2001.  The U.S. government claimed that Al Warafi was a member of the Taliban who served on the frontlines against the Northern Alliance.  Al Warafi denied this claim, contending that he only provided medical assistance to wounded fighters.  Citing Article 24 and other supporting articles of GC I, petitioner Al Warafi argued that his prolonged detention was unlawful since he was exclusively engaged in the provision of medical care at the time of the invasion and therefore should have been repatriated upon capture. At first glance, Al Warafi’s reliance on Article 24 seems misplaced as this provision is only applicable in situations of international armed conflict.  Common Article 2, which governs the application of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, states that the treaties are applicable to conflicts between High Contracting Parties or to situations of occupation.  While Afghanistan was a High Contracting Party to the Conventions at the time of the US invasion, the Taliban had not been recognized as the legitimate governing authority of the country.  As a result, the coalition invasion of Afghanistan did not amount to an international armed conflict since force was being directed against a non-state actor even though al-Qaeda and the Taliban were located in a foreign territory and the Taliban exerted control over much of the country.  Accordingly, the status and protections afforded to members of a nation’s armed forces during international armed conflict were not available to members of the Taliban regime. Assuming for the sake of argument that the legitimacy of the Taliban’s rule was in question, Article 13 of GC I may come into play.  Specifically, Article 13(3) establishes protective status for “[m]embers of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a Government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.” This article mirrors the language in Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 (GC III) which is an authoritative list of persons who receive combatant immunity and/or prisoner of war status once captured. While an analysis of this rule would not be used as a basis to classify the conflict, the Commentary to this provision reveals that the framers of the Conventions declined to extend combatant status to groups like the Taliban.  The Conference of Government Experts sought to limit the scope of this clause to prevent “any abusive interpretation which might have led to the formation of armed bands such as the "Great Companies"”. The Commentary further notes that the “provision must be interpreted, in the first place, in the light of the actual case which motivated its drafting -- that of the forces of General de Gaulle which were under the authority of the French National Liberation Committee”.  It concludes that only those forces which resemble the armed forces of a state Party to the conflict, which are recognized by third party states, and which assume obligations of the government subject to the Conventions may gain belligerent rights and protections afforded to members of the national armed forces.  None of these conditions were met by the Taliban. The appeal of Al Warafi’s argument is easy to see.  Those who fall into one of the categories enumerated in Article 24 are provided a unique status of “retained personnel”.  Upon capture, such persons should be repatriated unless they are needed to provide medical care to prisoners of war and only for such time as their services are necessary.   With regards to those falling within the purview of Article 24 “repatriation is the rule; retention the exception [p.53]”. Unfortunately for Al Warafi, the Commentary to Article 24, as well as Army Regulation 190-8 §3-15, specifies that only medical personnel of the armed forces of a nation are entitled to this protection.  Therefore, while the lack of proper identification is not dispositive as to whether Al Warafi was exclusively engaged in the provision of medical aid, the issue becomes moot as the Taliban lacked the proper authority to issue the credentials necessary for Al Warafi to obtain protection under Article 24. 
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