#War Crimes

A year after the Gaza War, the debate rages on about the conduct of forces on both sides during the three-week conflict. By now, major human rights organizations both in Israel and abroad have had their say in what crimes may have been committed during the war, and the UN released the results of their […]

Things have been difficult for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), pretty much from the start.  The one thing the UN-backed court charged with holding the leadership of the Khmer Rouge responsible for their crimes had going for it was that its first defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his nom de […]

After over a decade of delay, it seems that Karadzic will be tried in absentia.

Numbers can be a difficult thing.  While statistics can be a powerful form of evidence, they can also be misleading or take a situation out of its proper context.   Human rights organizations like numbers – casualty counts and similar statistics can demonstrate the magnitude of a problem in a way that mere prose cannot.  However, […]

The debate over Israeli and Palestinian conduct during the 2008-2009 Gaza War continues, this time with the release of the UN Human Rights Council report on the issue.  Commonly referred to as the Goldstone Report after the head of the special commission, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the 575 page report found that both sides […]

The United States should not join the International Criminal Court (ICC), as it “lacks prudent safeguards against political manipulation, possesses sweeping authority without accountability … and violates national sovereignty” says the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy research institute. The ICC was officially established in 2002 as a forum to prosecute serious international crimes–war crimes, […]

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) must prosecute those officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) allegedly responsible for war crimes taking place during the 1994 genocide, says Human Rights Watch (HRW). The advocacy organization argues in a series of letters that the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) has enough evidence to prosecute senior […]

A few facts about the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Numerous individual conflicts  since 1996, involving up to 7 nations and 25 armed groups.  Estimates of between 3.5 and 7.8 million deaths since 1998.  Hundreds of thousands of refugees.  Over 200,000 UN reported rapes in the last decade.  Women in the […]

Amidst what appears to be a confusion of evidence and a disregard for both the pressures faced by girls sold into marriage and the inherently dual victim-perpetrator status of children in conflict situations, Rania Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Iraqi teenage girl, has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for an attempted suicide […]

5-Aug-09 – The conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has seen a massive upsurge in sexual violence against men. By Lisa Gambone.

On her ten day trip through Africa, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will make two stops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – capital Kinshasa and Goma in the east. Estimates state that conflict in the DRC (a country the size of the US east of the Mississippi) has resulted in 3.5 […]

On July 14, the prosecution wrapped up its case against Thomas Lubanga, the first ever accused brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC).  Lubanga, the alleged leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), and its military wing the Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération de Congo (FPLC), has been charged with enlisting and conscripting child soldiers between […]