Human Rights

The Special Court for Sierra Leone is in a dire financial situation according to Chief Prosecutor Stephen Rapp who appealed to the U.N. Security Council today for more funds. Mr. Rapp described the situation as “an impending crisis” and warned of a break-down of the courts functionality without additional resources: Even if all pledged donations […]

Earlier this month President Barack Obama  attended a civil society summit in Moscow.  Present at that summit was Memorial, a human rights group that came to fruition during the perestroika years and whose main tasks is to collect the facts, shed light on the past, and find a path to the future without giving any lessons […]

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has found Tharcisse Renzaho, former prefect of Kigali-Ville and Colonel of the Rwandan Armed Forces, guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his involvement in the 1994 genocide of approximately 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda; he was acquitted of complicity to commit genocide.  He has […]

A major militant group in Nigeria’s troubled Niger Delta announced a sixty day ceasefire yesterday after the government released a top commander earlier in the week.  The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has been behind most of the region’s recent troubles and are responsible for several high profile kidnappings and attacks […]

Late last week Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, received an envelope containing the names of a dozen top suspects of crimes against humanity in Kenya. The alleged crimes against humanity occurred following the disputed 2008 Kenyan presidential election and the list is rumored to implicate some of Kenya’s most senior […]

Charles Taylor testified Tuesday before the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone for the first time, calling the charges against him bogus. Taylor served as president of Liberia during the 1991-2002 civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. Taylor allied with the leader of the Revolutionary United Front, Foday Sankoh, operating in Sierra Leone to hijack […]

President Obama has nominated Stephen Rapp, currently the Prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), as his Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues. As head of the Office of War Crimes Issues, Rapp will report directly to Secretary Clinton regarding a wide range of war crimes issues – from Darfur to Burma […]

Third of May 1808 – Francisco Goya Behind 88794 is a name that is no stranger to controversy, that puts her words into actions, who is not afraid to push the boundaries of truth and moral conviction to help those oppressed. Locked up behind bars, this woman locked horns with President George Bush, had called […]

The fragmented country of Somalia is no stranger to conflict and the last two years of fighting has increasingly taken a toll on the lives of everyone in the country, especially the children. Somalia is quite literally a raging battle ground, as fighting in the country continues, as insurgents exchange fire with the Somali government, […]

Mexico held its midterm elections last week and while the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party regained control of the Congress for the first time since 2000, another story has begun to emerge: the surprise showing of the small Green Party, which garnered 10% of the vote. The reason why this may be significant? The Green […]

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ccTOaxG-7CQ” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] When Sri Lanka’s 26 year civil war ended in May 2009 with the final defeat of the insurgent Tamil Tigers rebel group (LTTE) by government forces, there were immediate concerns about the civilian death tolls and methods used by the government in the final months of the war. The […]

Mourners gathered in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica to honor the victims and mark the anniversary of the bloodiest massacres during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. War crimes fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic led his troops in July 1995 into the U.N. safe-haven of Srebrenica and “stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and […]