Special Features

War Crimes Prosecution Watch: Volume 10- Issue 14 September 21, 2015

Editor in Chief
Alexis Krivoshik

Managing Editors
Kate Mozynski
Aaron Kearney

Senior Technical Editor
R. Tadd Pinkston

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

Kenya

Libya

Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

AFRICA

Nigeria

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

Syria

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal

Terrorism

Piracy

Gender-Based Violence

REPORTS

UN Reports

NGO Reports

Google Alert – War Crimes September 18, 2015

war crimes

Daily update ⋅ September 18, 2015
NEWS
Newsfirst
A Reckoning on Sri Lanka War Crimes

International New York Times
The United Nations Human Rights Council released its report Wednesday on possible war crimes committed during the last years of the Sri Lankan …
UN calls for war crimes court in Sri Lanka – WPTZ The Champlain Valley
Lanka Business Online
Sri Lanka offers domestic probe into war–crimes report

Fulton News
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka says is to establish a local mechanism to investigate accusations of human rights abuses stemming from the …
Balkan Insight
Bosnian Croat Military Policeman Cleared of War Crimes

Balkan Insight
Former Croatian Defence Council military policeman Mato Condric was acquitted of sexually abusing a female prisoner and physically abusing a man …
Revised (US) law made Rome (war crimes) Statute inapplicable in US

Asian Tribune
Congress passed the War Crimes Act of 1996, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, with “overwhelming bipartisan support.” The War Crimes Act …
War crimes report

The Hindu
Many countries and human rights organisations have been demanding a probe into the war crimes for sometime now (“Sri Lankan war crimes horrific: …
UN News Centre
UN officials outraged at accounts of Sri Lanka war crimes, stress need for accountability

Big News Network.com
17 September 2015 — Two senior United Nations officials today expressed outrage at the very serious accounts of war crimes and crimes against …
RINF Alternative News
Rejected! Parliament refuses to debate war criminalNetanyahu arrest petition

RINF Alternative News
Parliament has declined to debate a petition calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be arrested for allegedwar crimes.
Sri Lanka to set up domestic mechanism to probe war crimes

GlobalPost
17 (Xinhua) — Sri Lanka’s new government said on Thursday that it hopes to set up a domestic mechanism to investigate the allegations of war crimes.
 
Hindu American Foundation calls for international investigation into Sri Lanka civil war crimes

San Jose Mercury News
This year’s event called for an international investigation into war crimescommitted during Sri Lanka’s civil war, in preparation for the U.N. Human …
BBC News
Yemen’s Forgotten War

BBC News
Human rights organisations say the strikes often target civilians and may amount to war crimes. Gabriel Gatehouse has been to Yemen to investigate.

In Focus

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Guatemalan Justice System and Citizen Mobilization Lead to Major Victory in the Country’s Fight Against Impunity Guatemalan Justice System and Citizen Mobilization Lead to Major Victory in the Country’s Fight Against Impunity

In this podcast, Director of Programs Marcie Mersky analyzes the recent steps forward taken in Guatemala in the fight against impunity, including the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina and his possible criminal prosecution on charges related to a multi-million dollar corruption scandal.

Read More…

World Report

AFRICAA memorial to those killed or tortured during Kenya’s Mau Mau uprising against British colonial forces in the 1950s was unveiled in Nairobi as part of a British settlement with Kenyan veterans. The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced arrest warrants against two Kenyans accused of corrupting witnesses in the Court’s cases against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto. ICC judges said that the trial of Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen, accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes, should occur in Uganda rather than The Hague. Meanwhile, the trial of Bosco Ntaganda, a rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo, opened at the ICC. A rights group accused Sudan’s military of systematic abuses in Darfur, including rape, torture and killing civilians. The trial of Hissène Habré, the former leader of Chadaccused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture, continued in a special court in Senegal.

Read More…
AMERICASIn Colombia, government and FARC negotiators created an international sub-commission to settle the question of how accountability for war crimes would be handled in an eventual peace deal between the two parties. Pressured by civil society’s demands, Guatemala’s president resigned and was indicted on corruption charges brought by the Prosecutor’s Office and a UN-backed investigative commission known as the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), established to dismantle criminal networks with ties to politicians and the security forces. Documents recently declassified by Argentina’s military shed light on acts of torture agents its soldiers during the 1982 war with the United Kingdom over the Malvinas Islands. In Mexico, a report issued by a group of international experts–including former Guatemalan Prosecutor General Claudia Paz y Paz and Colombian lawyer Alejandro Valencia– contradicted the government’s official account of what happened to the 43 college students from Ayotzinapa who were disappeared one year ago.

Read More…
ASIAIn Nepal, the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) has urged the government to criminalize enforced disappearances in order to enable the commission to recommend action against perpetrators. While meeting with rebel groups, Myanmar’s president pushed for a ceasefire deal to end decades of conflict ahead of November elections. After the UN Human Rights Council announced it would release a report calling for accountability for war crimes committed duringSri Lanka’s civil war, the government put forth plans to establish a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission, set up a criminal justice mechanism and compensate victims. Australia’s Victoria State government wants to house Syrian refugees on an army base that was formerly used as a refuge for East Timorese refugees in the 1990s.

Read More…
EUROPEIn Serbia, eight former police officers were indicted on war crimes charges related to the killing of over 100 civilians near Srebrenica in 1995. Meanwhile, Serbia and Kosovo agreed to exchange schoolbooks, the first official effort to do so since the 1999 war between the two states in 1999. Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted a justice sector reform strategy, a condition for the release of European funding for local war crimes investigations. After accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction over crimes committed during the 2014 Maidan protests, Ukraine extended the Court’s jurisdiction to include crimes committed anywhere in the country since February 2014, including in Crimea and the downing of Flight MH17. The president of the European Council committed European Union support to any negotiations aimed at reunifying ethnically divided Cyprus.

Read More…
MENAIn Tunisia, hundreds of people protested against a proposed law on economic reconciliation that would offer amnesty for those accused of corruption. Meanwhile, the country’s truth commission has come under attack from the government and media. Protests over garbage collection in Lebanon havetransformed into a movement calling for broad institutional reforms to increase official accountability. The United Nations human rights chief called for an independent commission to investigate ongoing human rights abuses in Yemen, where a Saudi coalition is fighting against Houthi rebels.

Read More…

Publications

Living with the Shadows of the Past: The Impact of Disappearance on Wives of the Missing in LebanonThis report examines the impact on women of enforced disappearances committed during Lebanon’s civil war, focusing in particular on the effects on wives of the missing or disappeared—and their children. The research is based on interviews conducted by ICTJ with 23 wives of missing or disappeared persons of varying backgrounds.

On the Path to Vindicate Victims’ Rights in Uganda: Reflections on the Transitional Justice Process Since JubaThe government of Uganda has been slow to address and remedy serious human rights abuses committed against civilians throughout the country, despite its commitment under the Juba peace talks.

UN General Assembly Adopts Resolution for International Day of Commemoration of Victims of Genocide

September 11, 2015

Today the UN General Assembly passed a resolution establishing 9 December as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime. The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect commends the Republic of Armenia for their leadership on this issue as well as the more than 80 member states who co-sponsored the resolution. On 9 December the Global Centre will join the international community in commemorating and honoring the victims of this most horrific crime.

As the resolution notes, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide calls for memorialization of genocide as a means for preventing the future perpetration of this crime. This call was echoed in the UN Secretary-General’s 2013 report on the Responsibility to Protect where it was noted that many states, including Cambodia, Germany, Poland and Rwanda, have institutionalized the memory of past mass atrocity crimes as an element of preventive action, promoting greater understanding of the nature and legacy of such crimes.

During 2014 and 2015 the international community commemorated significant anniversaries of the most atrocious crimes of the last century including, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, 40th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities in Cambodia and the 20th anniversaries of the genocide in Rwanda and at Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the aftermath of these tragedies the UN and its member states have sometimes undertaken initiatives to respond to past failures, including the 2005 adoption of the principle of the Responsibility to Protect. But ongoing crises today underline the need for effective action to prevent the perpetration of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes wherever and whenever they occur.

This annual day of commemoration will serve as an opportunity for member states to annually address some of the core aims of the Responsibility to Protect – including preventing the incitement and enabling of genocide and ensuring justice for all victims of genocide. As we prepare for the inaugural day of commemoration, we also call upon all member states to sign and ratify the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.