Tunisia conducted its first free elections Sunday, with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay emphasizing the importance of adherence to the rule of law as the country moves forward. The election for the new constituent assembly was a success with a turnout rate of over 90 percent, according to the official results . [...]
An Australian citizen has filed two counts of war crimes charges against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for abuses that he allegedly witnessed in 2007 and 2008 as the Sri Lankan civil war drew to a close. Jegen Warran claims to have witnessed intentional attacks by Sri Lankan military forces against civilian targets including a [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday urged Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) to investigate the apparent “mass execution” of 53 Muammar Gaddafi supporters whose bodies were discovered at an abandoned hotel in an area of Sirte that was under anti-Gaddafi control. HRW emergencies director Peter Bouckaert called on the NTC to immediately investigate and hold [...]
Antonio Cassese , a renowned Italian international war crimes expert and key figure in the establishment of two international criminal tribunals, died Saturday in Florence, Italy, at the age of 74. Cassese was the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the first President of the UN Special Tribunal [...]
Defense lawyers for Nuon Chea , a former leader of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime filed a lawsuit Monday against Prime Minister Hun Sen for interfering with the UN-backed war crimes tribunal. Chea’s lawyers accused the prime minister of criminally conspiring to block some of the defense witnesses from testifying and consequently interfering with Chea’s right [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers Gabriela Knaul called Friday for integration of a gender perspective into countries’ criminal justice systems. The annual report “addresses the need to consider and integrate a gender perspective in the criminal justice system as a fundamental step towards allowing equal access to justice for [...]
Interim Libyan leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said Monday that he has ordered an investigation into the death of former leader Muammar Gaddafi . He said that the National Transition Council has formed a committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding Gaddafi’s capture and death last week at the hands of opposition forces in his hometown of Sirte [...]
Maria Fechter, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2012, is the author of the final article in a ten part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development under the direction of Professor Leonard Baynes. She writes on the need to provide regulations that prevent bill shock… In [...]
JURIST Special Guest Columnist Curtis Doebbler of Webster University and the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations, both in Geneva, Switzerland, says the killing of Muammar Gaddafi appears to be another violation of international law involving the US, sending the dangerous message that one must kill or be killed… Although the facts are far [...]
A Bahrain court on Sunday began hearing the appeals of 20 medical staff members convicted last month of participating in the country’s pro-democracy protests against the ruling regime. The 13 doctors, one dentist, nurses and paramedics who were jailed for providing treatment to injured protesters all worked at the Salmaniya Medical Complex in Manama, which [...]
