16 February 2022 - NPWJ News Digest on international criminal justice

Articles

Tigrayan soldiers accused of raping and killing civilians in Ethiopia’s civil war
The Guardian, 16 Feb 2022

Tigrayan soldiers killed civilians and gang-raped women and girls in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region, a human rights organisation has claimed, in the latest accusation of atrocities made against fighters engaged in the country’s civil war. Troops with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) shot dead at least 24 people in the town of Kobo in one day last September, according to Amnesty International.
 

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UAE envoy criticizes UN for failing to stem Houthi escalation
Arab News, 16 Feb 2022

The Emirati ambassador to the UN on Tuesday criticized the organization for failing to stem the Houthis’ aggression, and the “continued paralysis” of UN-led efforts to bring an end to the war in Yemen. Lana Nusseibeh condemned the Iran-backed militia’s use of Hodeidah port for stocking weapons and launching attacks on maritime routes, “threatening the security of navigation and the countries of the region.”

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Human rights lawyers attempt to bring Syria war crimes cases to ICC
The Guardian, 16 Feb 2022

A groundbreaking attempt to make Iranian and Syrian military officials answerable for war crimes they may have committed in Syria is being launched, as part of a bid to have the cases brought before the international criminal court. The request includes evidence of Syrian victims forced to flee into Jordan due to attacks and intimidation by the Syrian government and Iran-backed militia groups.

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New evidence of potential crimes against humanity by Tigrayan forces in Ethiopia, charity warns
Politics, 16 Feb 2022

Amnesty International has published harrowing new evidence of fighters affiliated with the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front carrying out dozens of civilian killings, gang-raping women and girls – some as young as 14 – and looting property in two areas of northern Ethiopia’s Amhara region. Conflict in Tigray broke out in November 2020, spreading to other regions of northern Ethiopia from July 2021.

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Why it is necessary to include ecocide in the Rome Statute
TBS News, 16 Feb 2022

The Assembly of state parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC) held its annual meeting from 6 to 11 December 2021 where state parties to the Rome Statute, the observer states, invited states, international and regional organisations and representatives from civil society gathered to discuss key challenges facing the Statute. The most substantial headway, however, was made elsewhere and did not involve major powers like the US or China.

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Putin baselessly claims 'genocide' is happening in areas of Ukraine controlled by Kremlin-backed rebels
Business Insider, 15 Feb 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday claimed, without evidence, that "genocide" is occurring in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, where Kremlin-backed rebels have been fighting a war with Ukrainian forces since 2014. "In our view what is now happening in Donbas is genocide," Putin said during a joint press conference in Moscow with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, per BBC News. Similarly, Putin in December said the conflict in the Donbas looks like genocide.

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France closes probe into plane attack that sparked Rwanda genocide
France 24, 15 Feb 2022

France’s top court on Tuesday confirmed that a probe should be closed into the shooting down of a presidential plane that triggered the 1994 Rwanda genocide, ending a two-decade legal saga. The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal by families of people killed in the missile attack on president Juvenal Habyarimana’s aircraft on April 6, 1994.
 

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