Special Features

WCPW Volume 10, Issue 22 – January 11, 2016

War Crimes Prosecution Watch is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war crimes throughout the world. To subscribe, please email warcrimeswatch@pilpg.org and type “subscribe” in the subject line.

Opinions expressed in the articles herein represent the views of their authors and are not necessarily those of the War Crimes Prosecution Watch staff, the Case Western Reserve University School of Law or Public International Law & Policy Group.

Contents

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Central African Republic & Uganda

Darfur, Sudan

AFRICA

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Mali

Chad

EUROPE

Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia

MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Iraq

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal

War Crimes Investigations in Burma

TOPICS

Terrorism

Piracy

Gender-Based Violence

REPORTS

UN Reports

NGO Reports

WORTH READING

Lori Fossum: Cyber Conflict Bibliography, 2015 Update

Helen Brady and Ryan Liss: The Evolution of Persecution as a Crime Against Humanity

Sean D. Murphy: New Mechanisms for Punishing Atrocities Committed in Non-International Armed Conflicts

Barbara Miltner: Correction: The Mediterranean Migration Crisis: A Clash of the Titans’ Obligations?

TJ | In Focus: UN Rights Chief Sees Hope amid Challenges in Fight against Impunity

In Focus

UN Human Rights Chief Sees Hope amid Challenges in Fight against Impunity

On December 8, ICTJ and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University hosted UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein for the 8th Annual Emilio Mignone Lecture on Transitional Justice.

Read More…

Other News

ICTJ: Year in Review 2015

Highlights from ICTJ’s work and impact over the past year, reflections from our experts, with a special message from ICTJ President David Tolbert.

Read More…

Victims Know Best Which Reparations Programs Will Succeed

In this podcast, Cristián Correa, senior associate in ICTJ’s Reparative Justice program, discusses the importance of engaging victims in the reparations process in Côte d’Ivoire.

Read More…

Publications

Opening Up Remedies in Myanmar

This briefing paper calls on the soon-to-be-established NLD-led Burmese government to seriously consider taking steps to deal with Myanmar’s troubled past as a way to help end the cycle of violence and human rights violations in the conflict-torn country.

View Report

Education and Transitional Justice: Opportunities and Challenges for Peacebuilding

This report, part of a joint research project by ICTJ and UNICEF on the intersections of education, transitional justice, and peacebuilding, explores how a transitional justice framework can help to identify educational deficits relating to the logic of past conflict and/or repression and inform the reconstruction of the education sector.

View Report

More Publications

ISA News Update: Saudi-Iranian Tensions Could Lead to War

The Middle East’s Leading Rivalry

Sectarian Divisions Threaten the Entire Region

Bitter Rivals

Saudi Arabia’s execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, that country’s leading Shiite cleric, triggered a dramatic rise in tensions between the leader of the Middle East’s Sunni Muslims (Saudi Arabia) and the leader of the world’s Shiite Muslims (Iran).  Already, tensions between these two countries were dangerously high as a result of the fact that they are on opposite sides of the religion-fuelled conflicts in places such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen.  Adding to these tensions in recent years has been Iran’s efforts to develop a nuclear program, which led to last year’s deal between Iran and the international community regarding its nuclear activities (a deal condemned by the Saudis).  Now, as tensions have reached their highest level in recent years, there is a growing possibility of an outright conflict between Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies on one side and Iran and its Shiite partners on the other, a development that has the potential to destabilize the region and the world.

Rising Tensions

Saudi Arabia’s decision to execute the leading cleric among the Shiite minority that inhabits eastern Saudi Arabia was the catalyst for a series of events that have dramatically raised between that country and Iran.  First, the execution of Sheikh Nimr led to major protests in Shiite-populated areas of eastern Saudi Arabia, a region that is already dealing with high levels of instability.  Shortly thereafter, Iran condemned the sheikh’s execution and warned Saudi Arabia that it faced “divine retribution” for this execution.  In scenes reminiscent of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, protestors stormed the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran, burning much of it and forcing Saudi diplomats to flee the country.  In response, Saudi Arabia (and later some of its Sunni allies) broke off diplomatic relations with Iran and expelled all Iranian diplomatic personnel from their countries.

Allies for Both Sides

This dramatic increase in tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran is leading to other countries in the region lining up to take sides behind one of these two countries.  For example, the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan quickly followed Riyadh’s lead and broke off diplomatic ties with Iran.  Moreover, Saudi Arabia’s allies fighting in the civil wars in Syria and Yemen have already expressed their support for its stance against Iran.  On the opposite side, Iran’s allies, such as the governments of Syria and Iraq, as well as the Houthi rebels in Yemen, will certainly move to back Tehran in its showdown with the Saudis.  Meanwhile, a major factor to watch will be the role of outside players in this dispute.  For example, the United States and its European allies have moved to improve relations with Iran in recent months, but this could be jeopardized by this new dispute.  Another outside power, Russia, has found itself allied with Iran in Syria’s civil war and it may move to support Iran in its showdown with Saudi Arabia, once again placing the US and its Western allies in opposition to Russia in a strategic region.

Looking for War?

The biggest threat posed by this dispute is the potential for an all-out conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.  Initially, the biggest threat will be posed by the likelihood that the proxy wars between the two countries in places such as Syria and Yemen will intensify, while Iran may move to promote Shiite insurgencies in places such as Bahrain and Lebanon.  However, the potential for a direct conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran cannot be ruled out, given the fact that both sides are preparing for just such a conflict.  For Saudi Arabia, King Salman and his government have taken a much harder line towards Iran than their predecessors and are dismayed by the presence of an Iran-backed government in Iraq and the fact that Iran is supporting the Assad regime in Syria and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.  For Iran, hardliners that have been challenged by the moderate government of President Hassan Rouhani see a conflict with their leading rival as a means of restoring their dominant position in Iran.  For the international community, a potential conflict between two of the Middle East’s most powerful states is very disconcerting, given the impact that such as conflict would have on that already-volatile region’s stability as well as on the global economy.  For an already nervous world, the Saudi-Iranian showdown is an inauspicious start to 2016.

WCPW Volume 10, Issue 21 – December 28, 2015

War Crimes Prosecution Watch is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war crimes throughout the world. To subscribe, please email warcrimeswatch@pilpg.org and type “subscribe” in the subject line.

Opinions expressed in the articles herein represent the views of their authors and are not necessarily those of the War Crimes Prosecution Watch staff, the Case Western Reserve University School of Law or Public International Law & Policy Group.

Contents

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Central African Republic & Uganda

Darfur, Sudan

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Kenya

Libya

Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

AFRICA

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Chad

Nigeria

EUROPE

Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia

MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Iraq

Syria

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal

TOPICS

Piracy

Gender-Based Violence

REPORTS

UN Reports

NGO Reports

WORTH READING

WORTH READING

Humanity in War Update – December 2015

In This Issue

On the Blog

International Humanitarian Law For Students and Professionals

Humanity in War Live-Stream Series: A Conversation on the International Conference

Prosecuting Serious International Crimes: Exploring the Intersections between International Justice and Domestic Rule of Law Efforts

Reminder for Francis Lieber Prize 2016

On the Blog 

International Humanitarian Law Workshop with Seattle University School of Law 

 

An Engaging Humanitarian Education Tool    

 

May the Law be Ever in Your Favor: The Hunger Games and IHL  

 

The Road to Peace   

 

When Does War End? 

 

International Humanitarian Law For Students and Professionals

An instructor-led course designed to train field and headquarters personnel, students, lawyers, and other interested professionals to recognize and understand situations where international humanitarian law might be applicable.

2016 DATES 

 

American Red Cross

Washington, DC

 January 14, February 11, March 3, April 14, May 12, June 9 

 

Seattle University of Law

Seattle, WA 

January 30

UCLA-USC

Los Angeles, CA 

February 20

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA

February 27 

 

 

 

To register for any of the dates above contact:

ihlaw@redcross.org 

*CLE Credits May Be Available 

The Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law is announcing the early opening of its application to the 2016 Program of Advanced Studies on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and will be accepting submissions to the Human Rights Essay Award, which is the only full scholarship available to the Program.

For further details and information please visit the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law or humanityinwarblog.com

Humanity in War Live-Stream Series: A Conversation on the International Conference 

 

We had a wonderful conversation with Jane Zimmerman and Brad Gutierrez covering the outcomes of the International Conference (IC) and what it means for humanitarians and the movement worldwide.

The IC brings together representatives from 200 governments along with members of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement to discuss pressing humanitarian issues such as migration, sexual and gender-based violence, healthcare in danger, and compliance with the rules of war.

Watch on humanityinwarblog.com

Prosecuting Serious International Crimes:

 Exploring the Intersections between International Justice and Domestic Rule of Law Efforts

Save the Date: March 29-30, 2016

In celebration of the  

20th Anniversary of the War Crimes Research Office 

American University Washington College of Law  

Claudio Grossman Hall, Terrace Level

This academic year marks the 20th anniversary of the War Crimes Research Office (WCRO), founded to promote accountability for serious international crimes. In celebration, the WCRO will host a conference, the principal goal of which is to broaden the conversation about effective accountability mechanisms by bringing together practitioners, experts, and academics from two different communities: the international justice and rule of law fields. Despite a shared interest in increased accountability for serious crimes, these communities have had little opportunity to exchange, debate, or collaborate on practical strategies designed to strengthen domestic systems’ ability to investigate and prosecute serious crimes.

The event is cosponsored by PluriCourts of the University of Oslo, the American Bar Association, the American Society for International Law and the American Red Cross.

Agenda and speakers will be available at http://www.wcl.american.edu/warcrimes shortly.

Please register at

https://www.wcl.american.edu/secle/cle_form.cfm

 

 

Reminder for Francis Lieber Prize 2016 

 

Don’t forget that Emory University School of Law will be accepting submissions for The American Society of International Law’s Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict, awarding the Francis Lieber Prize to the authors of publications that the judges consider to be outstanding in the field of law and armed conflict. Both monographs and articles (including chapters in books of essays) are eligible for consideration – the prize is awarded to the best submission in each of these two categories.   

Information regarding criteria and submission deadline, can be found here. For more information contact Laura Blank at Lblank@emory.edu.   

 

2015 Winners

Book prize:

Gilles Giacca, “Economic, social, and cultural rights in armed conflict” (OUP:2014)

Essay prize:

Tom Ruys, “The meaning of ‘force’ and the boundaries of the jus ad bellum: are ‘minimal’ uses of force excluded from UN Charter Article 2(4)?’, 108 AJIL 159 (2014).

If you have any questions regarding the Humanity in War Update or any other correspondence from the American Red Cross IHL team, please contact karen.melara@redcross.org.