Special Features

ICTJ | World Report January 2016 – Transitional Justice News and Analysis

In Focus

Dreams of January

Five years ago, Tunisia’s youth played a lead role in protests that drove dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power and set the country on a transition towards democracy, but efforts to address past human rights abuses have been hampered by waning political support and a restrictive climate fueled by fears of terrorism. The second in a series of long form multimedia pieces highlighting the role of local and national activists pushing for change, “Dreams of January” portrays the thoughts and struggles of the young Tunisians who helped sparked the Arab Spring and continue to fight for accountability and justice today.

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World Report

AFRICA

Thomas Lubanga and Germain Katanga, each convicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), were transferred to the DRC to serve out the remainder of their prison sentences. Lawyers for Kenya Deputy President William Ruto urged ICC judges to throw out the case against him, arguing that the prosecution had failed to prove its case. In Côte d’Ivoire, the trial of several top officials in former president Laurent Gbagbo’s government for the murder of ex-military chief Robert Guei during a 2002 coup attempt was delayed due to procedural issues. The UN documented cases of security forces gang raping women during searches of opposition members’ houses and has heard testimony of mass graves in Burundi, where tensions have been high since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term in office. The testimony phase ended in the trial of Hissène Habré, former president of Chad, with witnesses sharing harrowing testimony of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Habré’s rule. In Rwanda, a court convicted a former pastor of genocide for leading a massacre of people hiding in his church during the 1994 genocide.

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AMERICAS

Under an agreement between the FARC and Colombia’s government, the bodies of 29 people who disappeared during the country’s civil war were returned to their families. A Colombian prosecutor said that up to 24,000 state agents are linked to crimes committed during the conflict. In Guatemala, the retrial of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the civil war in the 1980s was suspended shortly after it began in order to resolve outstanding legal petitions. Eighteen former military officials were arrested on charges related to massacres and disappearances committed during Guatemala’s civil war. A former El Salvador defense minister was deported from the United States for his role in extrajudicial killings and torture during the country’s civil war.

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ASIA

In Nepal a victims’ advocate petitioned the Supreme Court to review of contradictory provisions in the existing rules and regulations regarding compensation benefits and services for victims of Nepal’s civil war. After her political party won Myanmar’s historic elections, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi participated in national peace talks for the first time. In a deal with South Korea, Japan apologized to so-called ‘comfort women’ – women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II – and promised to provide compensation, but victims criticized the deal because they were not consulted on the deal and because the compensation takes the form of humanitarian aid rather than reparations. A new report asserted that civilians are still abducted, tortured, and sexually abused by Sri Lanka’s security forces, despite the new government’s commitment to seek justice for those and other crimes.

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EUROPE

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite being ruled unconstitutional, the Republika Srpska publically celebrated the founding of the Serb Republic, dredging up ethnic divisions in towns like Prijedor. Meanwhile, the European Union approved funds to support Bosnia’s war crimes prosecutions after the government adopted a justice sector reform strategy. Human rights campaigners in Montenegro called on the government to establish a research and documentation center for crimes committed during conflicts in the 1990s, as it has promised to do. The Dutch government announced that it will host a special court for war crimes committed during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, and that the court will begin operations this year. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia demanded that Serbia provide regular updates on efforts to arrest three members of the Serbian Radical Party accused of threatening witnesses in the war crimes trial of their leader.

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MENA

The head of Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission said that the commission has received 20,600 complaints of human rights violations from victims around the country. In a new report, Amnesty International accused police in Tunisia of torture and killing detainees as security forces have cracked down after several recent terrorist attacks. In Egypt, security forces arrested several prominent activists ahead of the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that ousted then-president Hosni Mubarak. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, the head of the Lebanese Forces political party endorsed his wartime rival for the presidency, stressing that the country must move forward while remembering past events in order to avoid recurrence of violence. The head of a British investigation into crimes allegedly committed by United Kingdom forces in Iraq said that some soldiers may face prosecution for charges including murder.

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Publications

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.

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Tunisia in Transition: One Year After the Creation of the Truth and Dignity Commission

This 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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More Publications

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.