10 February 2016 - NPWJ News Digest on International Criminal Justice

Articles

UN report: Syrian government actions amount to 'extermination'
By The Guardian, 08 Feb 2016

Detainees held by the Syrian government are dying on a massive scale amounting to a state policy of extermination of the civilian population, a crime against humanity, United Nations investigators has said. The UN commission of inquiry called on the security council to impose sanctions against Syrian officials in the civilian and military hierarchy responsible for or complicit in deaths, torture and disappearances in custody, but stopped short of naming individuals. In their report released on Monday, the independent experts said they had also documented mass killings and torture of prisoners by two jihadi groups, al-Nusra Front and Islamic State, constituting war crimes. Tens of thousands of detainees are held by President Bashar al-Assad’s government at any one time, and thousands more have “disappeared” after being arrested by state forces or gone missing after abduction by armed groups, the report said. Through mass arrests and killing of civilians, including by starvation and untreated wounds and disease, state forces have “engaged in the multiple commissions of crimes, amounting to a systematic and widespread attack against a civilian population”.

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Defence lawyers begin summing up in Hissène Habré war crimes trial
By The Guardian, 08 Feb 2016

Lawyers representing the civil parties in the trial of former Chadian president Hissène Habré have begun summing up, the last stage in the landmark case before judges retire to consider their verdict. Habré, president of Chad from 1982-90, is standing trial on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture at a specially convened court, theextraordinary African chambers (EAC), in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. He’s accused of presiding over a network of secret police known as the Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS) and giving direct orders for torture and punishment. A 1990s human rights report from Chad documented hundreds of cases of human rights abuses and estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 victims. Habré denies the charges against him, and his defence lawyers have suggested he was unaware of the abuses.

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Africa’s leaders protect each other
By The Economist, 06 Feb 2016

ON JANUARY 28th the Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo became the first former head of state to go on trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague. Three days later the African Union (AU) resolved, among other rude comments about the court, to support Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir in his determination to ignore the warrant for his arrest on charges of genocide in Darfur. It also expressed “deep concern regarding…the wisdom of the continued prosecution” of African leaders including Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, who faces charges of orchestrating violence after an election eight years ago. Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, who faced similar charges which the ICC dropped in 2014, is urging African members of the ICC to withdraw from it. The court is vulnerable to the charge of exercising victors’ justice, because militiamen who backed the Ivory Coast’s current president, Alassane Ouattara, against Mr Gbagbo also committed atrocities—but none of them has been indicted. The court’s doughty chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian, says she will investigate all sides. But Mr Ouattara seems loth to co-operate with her over crimes committed by his friends.

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Serbia to Adopt War Crimes Strategy by July
by Balkan Insight, 04 Feb 2016

 The Serbian justice ministry this week published the final draft of its National War Crimes Strategy after accepting several proposals from international organisations, human rights associations and experts. According to the ministry, the initial draft “is now significantly improved” after a month of consultations. “At this moment we are waiting for some additional comments from state institutions and after this, the strategy will be sent to the government for adoption,” the ministry told BIRN. The 46-page draft strategy for 2016-20 sets out plans for dealing with the prosecution of crimes committed during the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. It is intended to be “a clear reflection of the undeniable commitment of the Republic of Serbia to the effective punishment of war crimes”, the document says. The ministry said the strategy has three main goals: “adequate punishment of those responsible for war crimes, justice for victims, and location of the bodies of the missing”. The strategy sets out measures to improve the legislative framework and to ensure that the country’s institutions have the necessary human and material resources to properly prosecute war crimes.

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Follow me, I'm right behind you, says Kenyatta
by ISS Africa, 04 Feb 2016

 As the 26th ordinary summit of the African Union (AU) ended in Addis Ababa on Sunday, Kenyan media led with reports that ‘the African Union has adopted, without amendments, a proposal by President Uhuru Kenyatta to develop a roadmap for withdrawal from the Rome Statute’ – as the Daily Nation put it. The AU heads of state did not decide to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) en masse – yet. Nor even did Kenyatta ask for that. In his speech to the AU Assembly, he asked the summit to give the Open-Ended Committee of African Ministers on the ICC ‘a new mandate to develop a roadmap for withdrawal from the Rome Statute as necessary.’ The key phrase here is ‘as necessary.’ The rest of his speech makes clear that withdrawal from the ICC would be conditional on the court failing to meet the AU’s demands. Kenyatta demands several ‘reforms’ from the ICC. This includes withdrawing its cases against his deputy, William Ruto, and Kenyan radio journalist Joshua arap Sang, who – like Kenyatta – were indicted for complicity in the political violence which followed the December 2007 elections.

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