05 July 2017 - NPWJ News Digest on international criminal justice

Articles

ICC to hand down verdict on SA failure to arrest Bashir
By AFP, 05 Jul 2017

War crimes judges will tomorrow hand down an eagerly awaited ruling on whether South Africa flouted international law by failing to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, wanted for genocide in Darfur, in 2015. The landmark decision will set a precedent for co-operation between countries and the International Criminal Court, experts say. It will also highlight that the tribunal, in The Hague, can function only with the support of its affiliated states and the backing of the UN Security Council.

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International Criminal Court regrets misleading reports by Bangladeshi media
By Bangladesh News 24 hours, 04 Jul 2017

 The International Court of Justice has regretted misleading reports by Bangladeshi  newspapers on a meeting between its President Judge Silvia Fernàndez de Gurmendi and Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha. Chief Justice Sinha met Judge de Gurmendi and ICC Deputy Prosecutor James Stewart on June 20 during a visit to The Hague in the Netherlands. 

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Disappointment, confusion surround ICC decisions for war-crime victims
By The Globe and Mail, 03 Jul 2017

David Rwemera, a 64-year-old farmer with weary eyes and a jacket much too big for his thin frame, remembers how the investigators from The Hague found him mourning for his murdered family. They asked him to be patient and keep faith in justice. It took more than a decade, but the International Criminal Court convicted the warlord who led the massacre that killed his eight children, his two wives and his brother. And in a landmark ruling this year, the court awarded financial reparations to the villagers who survived the ordeal.

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Africa's place at the 15-year-old International Criminal Court
By Africa News, 03 Jul 2017

It was established by a Rome Statute adopted in 1998 to prosecute international crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed within the territory of signatories and nationals of signatory countries.It was ratified by 123 countries including a total of 34 African states out of the then 54 countries.

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Zambia: 'We Stay in ICC'
By All Africa , 01 Jul 2017

Zambia will continue to uphold its membership on the International Criminal Court (ICC), Parliament heard yesterday. Justice Minister Given Lubinda told the House that from the submissions received from a country-wide consultative process, 91.43 per cent of the petitioners were against the idea of Zambia withdrawal from the ICC while only 8.57 per cent were of the view that the country should consider pulling out.

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15 years of ICC: international criminal justice is working and needs strong support
By The Huffington Post, 30 Jun 2017

 This summer, the International Criminal Court – ICC – will be commemorating 15 years of operations, brought about by the entry into force of the Court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, on 1 July 2002. The required high number of ratifications was swiftly attained four years after the adoption of the treaty in Rome on 17 July 1998, an extremely short time for an instrument of such importance and technical complexity. This demonstrated that the Court was indeed “an idea whose time had come”.

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Philippine police use hospitals to hide drug war killings
By Reuters, 29 Jun 2017

The residents of Old Balara hid in their homes when gunfire erupted in their Manila district last September. They didn't see the police operation that killed seven drug suspects that night. But they witnessed the gory aftermath and it haunts them still. That night, Herlina Alim said she watched police haul away the men's bodies, leaving trails of blood. “They were dragged down the alley like pigs,” she said. Her neighbor Lenlen Magano said she saw three bodies, face down and motionless, piled at the end of the alley while police stood calmly by.

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