Posts filed under 'Human Rights'
April 11th, 2008 at 12:01am
Last week, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Haradinaj was also a commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the late 1990s. Although he was charged with crimes such as murder, rape, and torture, the ICTY found that these crimes, if committed, may have been targeted against individuals rather than against groups. Because the victims may have been targeted for individual reasons, the ICTY could not find that Haradinaj had targeted entire civilian groups.
Although one of Haradinaj’s co-defendants, Idriz Balaj, was also acquitted, a third co-defendant, Lahi Brahimaj, was convicted and sentenced to six years in jail for cruel treatment and torture.
Judge Alphonsus Orie stated that the court has had difficulty in obtaining testimony from a significant number of witnesses. Orie remarked that “The Chamber gained a strong impression that the trial was being held in an atmosphere where witnesses felt unsafe.”
More on the story here.
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March 21st, 2008 at 09:29am
On March 14, Madagascar’s Malagasy Government ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, bringing the total number of States Parties to the Court to 106. The statute will enter into force in the island nation on June 1, 2008.
The Rome Statute was adopted in July of 1998. Last year, the President of the ICC, Judge Philippe Kirsch, called for the ratification of the Rome Statute by countries that had not yet done so. Judge Kirsch emphasized that the Court was already having an effect in deterring crimes and building peace in some countries.
See here for story.
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March 19th, 2008 at 06:04pm
On March 6, infamous weapons dealer Viktor Bout was arrested in Bangkok. Bout’s role in supplying weapons to some of the world’s deadliest conflicts had earned him the nickname “Merchant of Death,” and he is believed to have inspired Nicholas Cage’s character in the film “Lord of War.”
While praising Bout’s capture, Antonio Maria Costa, the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, called on Thailand to ratify the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. According to Costa, ratifying this treaty would “make it easier to bring criminals of [Bout’s] ilk to justice, for example through mutual legal assistance and extradition.” Costa also encouraged states to ratify the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts, and Components and Ammunition, known as the UN Firearms Protocol.
According to the UNODC, nearly 1 billion guns are in circulation throughout the world, and three fourths of them are in civilian hands. Every year, 8 million guns are manufactured, along with twice the amount of ammunition that would be needed to kill the world’s entire population.
The story is available here.
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February 29th, 2008 at 01:27pm
The European Court of Human Rights, in Mansuroglu v. Turkey, recently ruled that Turkey had violated Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights during a 1996 anti-terrorism operation conducted against the Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK). The incident, during which the applicants’ son was killed and the applicant was “inhumanely treated,” violated the Convention’s right to life and prohibition against inhumane treatment. While the Court accepted that Turkey had a general right to conduct the operation, it was not convinced that the operation had been planned so as to minimize the risk to human life. The Court emphasized the lack of an effective investigation, noting that the Turkish government neglected to examine the weapon that was used in the shooting and did not interview the police officers involved in the incident.
For more information, please click here.
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February 25th, 2008 at 06:05am
The Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) upheld the convictions and sentences of three rebel leaders on February 22. The defendants were former leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a military group that supported Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during Sierra Leone’s civil war in the 1990s. The three men, Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara, and Santigie Sorbor Kanu, were given sentences of 45 to 50 years for war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were found guilty of 11 charges, including acts of terrorism, murder, rape, enslavement, and military conscription of children under the age of fifteen. The full text of the decision can be found here.
On a separate note, the Court is currently convening a conference to address issues related to the cessation of its judicial activities. The Court’s press release can be found here.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 04:09am
In Alexandridis v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights recently held that obligating a person to reveal his religion constitutes a violation of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The applicant, a Greek lawyer, alleged that he was asked to reveal whether he was an orthodox Christian when taking the oath of office. The Greek Government in response to the allegation stated that the applicant had been allowed to make a solemn declaration and refrain from disclosing his religion but was unable to exercise this option due to a procedural failure. The court also held there was no effective alternative remedy for the applicant, which qualified as a violation of Article 13, the right to an effective remedy, of the European Convention on Human Rights. For further details on this case, click here.
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February 13th, 2008 at 10:41pm
On February 13, some 1200 experts, legislators, law enforcement officials, business leaders, NGO representatives, celebrities, and trafficking victims convened in Vienna, Austria for the first-ever UN global forum against human trafficking. Giving remarks ahead of the February 13-15 forum, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Antonio Maria Costa explained that human trafficking is widespread throughout the global economic system. Yet because of the lack of information about human trafficking, Mr. Costa called it “a monster whose shape, size and ferocity we can only guess.” It often accompanies other unlawful activities, including illegal migration, forced labor, pedophilia, child exploitation, and organized prostitution.
“It’s time for the world to open its eyes to this form of modern slavery,” declared Mr. Costa. “Moral outrage [alone] is not going to stop the traffickers; we need high impact law enforcement measures to make human trafficking a riskier business.”
Forum participants are discussing practical measures of preventing human trafficking and bringing perpetrators to justice. Measures under consideration include tracking and blocking Internet payments for human trafficking transactions; developing technology to pinpoint frequently used trafficking routes; help-lines to report suspected child prostitution or sex slavery; codes of conduct to curb sex tourism; and efforts to stop the forced removal and trade of human organs.
In a related development, UNODC launched a manual, Good Practices in the Protection of Witnesses in Criminal Proceedings Involving Organized Crime, aimed at helping countries develop comprehensive programs for the protection of victims and witnesses of crime. Witness protection programs can be a key tool in the dismantling of human trafficking networks.
More on these stories is available here and here.
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December 17th, 2007 at 12:07pm
The BBC reported today that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has pardoned the female rape victim in the “Qatif girl” case. In November, the woman and was sentenced to 200 lashes for the crime of being alone with a male who was not a relative. The woman and her companion were abducted while sitting in a car together and were both gang raped multiple times by seven other men. The rapists were subsequently given prison sentences of up to 9 years.
King Abdullah often issues pardons during Eid al-Adha, which will take place at the end of this week. Human rights groups had been calling on him to change the sentence, but in the aftermath of the pardon some religious conservatives have denounced the king’s decision.
It is not known whether the sentence of the woman’s companion was also lifted.
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December 15th, 2007 at 03:16pm
An international monitoring group has been created by the Council of Europe to implement the Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings. The Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) will be composed of between ten and fifteen experts in the field of human rights. Once the Convention takes effect in February of 2008 the group will be formed within the following year and will establish its own methods for monitoring trafficking in human beings within the member states. The Convention has been ratified by Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Georgia, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia, and the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, has urged more states to ratify it.
The Council of Europe press release can be found here.
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December 10th, 2007 at 07:58pm
December 10 was UN Human Rights Day. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used the occasion to remind the world that the freedoms upheld in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must apply universally: “The Declaration remains as relevant today as it did on the day it was adopted,” Mr. Ban said. “But the fundamental freedoms enshrined in it are still not a reality for everyone. Too often, Governments lack the political will to implement international norms they have willingly accepted.”
December 10, 2008 will mark the 60th anniversary of the Declaration. Mr. Ban hopes that the world will use year leading up to the anniversary to reinvigorate efforts to ensure that the document’s freedoms apply to all.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour gave a separate statement.
The full text of the Declaration, adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948, is available here.
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