In Focus

Devil Is in the Detail of Colombian Justice DealIn this op-ed, ICTJ Vice President Paul Seils analyzes the criminal justice agreement announced by the Government of Colombia and the FARC and discusses what aspects of the deal need clarification to ensure that it is capable of delivering the kind of truth and justice that victims of Colombia’s armed conflict deserve.

World Report

AFRICAIn South Africa, the African National Congress passed a resolution to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC prosecutor unveiled 60 new war crimes charges – including using child soldiers and keeping sex slaves – against Dominic Ongwen, a former commander of Uganda‘s Lord’s Resistance Army. ICC judges refused to cut the 14-year sentence of former Democratic Republic of Congo militia leader Thomas Lubanga, who was convicted for using child soldiers. Less than half of the candidates running in this month’s presidential election in Côte d’Ivoire signed a good conduct pledge designed to help avert a repeat of the political violence that followed the country’s 2010 election. A militia leader accused of destroying historic mausoleums in Mali was arrested and transferred to the ICC.

AMERICASIn Colombia, a former army colonel charged with the murders of 32 civilians said he wants his trial to be transferred to a transitional justice court if and when a peace deal is signed, while a prosecutor asked the Supreme Court to open a criminal investigation into former president Alvaro Uribe’s alleged complicity in a 1997 paramilitary massacre. The judge and prosecutor in the genocide trial ofGuatemala‘s former ruler, Efraín Ríos Montt – former Judge Iris Yassmin Barrios Aguilar and former Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey – were awarded the Civil Courage Prize for human rights work. Brazil‘s electoral authority found grounds to investigate President Dilma Rousseff for allegedly using donations from companies involved in a corruption scheme to finance her 2014 re-election campaign. The president of Mexico told the families of the 43 college students from Ayotzinapa who were disappeared one year ago that he would appoint a new special prosecutor to investigate disappearances in the country.

ASIAAt the request of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an international panel of experts is ready to investigate the bombing of a MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan by US forces, but is waiting on permission from the US and Afghan governments. Nepal‘s parliament promulgated the country’s new constitution, and MP Sharma Oli was elected prime minister. The UN Human Rights Council adoptedby consensus a resolution aimed at achieving justice and accountability for crimes committed during Sri Lanka‘s civil war with Tamil rebels, and the Sri Lankan goverment signaled that it will establish a credible judicial process involving foreign judges and prosecutors as called for in the resolution. Meanwhile, four Sri Lankan soldiers were sentenced to 25 years in prison for the rape of a Tamil woman. A museum in China published a collection of confessions by Japanese war criminals during World War II.

EUROPEEuropean Union foreign ministers criticized a planned referendum by the Republika Srpska that would challenge the authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina‘s state judiciary. In his address to the UN General Assembly, the president of Serbia criticized Kosovo’s bid to join UNESCO and called on the international community to do more to protect Serbian cultural heritage in the former Serbian province.Kosovo’s foreign minister said that the government has nothing to hide from a newly created war crimes court that will try former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters. Croatia’s security and intelligence agency transferred secret service documents dating from 1937 to 1990 to the state archives, where they can be viewed by the public for the first time. The ICC prosecutor asked judges to open a full investigation into Georgia‘s 2008 conflict with Russia over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia.

MENATunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet – a coalition of workers, employers, human rights activists and lawyers – won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to steer the country towards democracy. A judge inLebanon opened an investigation into three corruption complaints submitted by activists after protests over garbage collection grew into a larger movement calling for institutional reforms to increase accountability. Amid a wave of violence, Israel set up road blocks in Palestinian sections of Jerusalem.Algeria’s president credited the 2005 Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation – which provided amnesty to armed rebels and exonerated government forces of abuse allegations – with protecting the country from instability, but ten years after the end of the country’s civil war, victims are still calling for justice. In Egypt, former president Hosni Mubarak’s two sons, who were convicted of embezzlement and face additional charges, were released by an Egyptian court after it found that their time in temporary detention exceeded the legal limit.

Publications

Squaring Colombia’s Circle: The Objectives of Punishment and the Pursuit of PeaceThis paper weighs the possible modes and competing policy objectives of punishing FARC members for serious crimes in the context of Colombia’s ongoing peace negotiations. It argues that punishment has to occur in a way that does not damage one of the underlying objectives of the peace process, transforming the FARC from an insurgent group into a political actor.

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Tunisia in Transition: One Year After the Creation of the Truth and Dignity CommissionThis briefing paper details and analyzes the progress made so far in Tunisia to implement its historic Transitional Justice Law, with a particular focus on the Truth and Dignity Commission, created one year ago.

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Impunity Watch

In Focus

World Report

Publications

Author: Impunity Watch Archive