19 Nov 2014 - NPWJ News Digest on International Criminal Justice

NPWJ press release

ICC: NPWJ organises Conference at the Italian Senate to celebrate 20 years of commitment against impunity
By No Peace Without Justice, 13 Nov 2014

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), a committee of parliamentarians, mayors and citizens, established at the initiative of the Radical Party, with the goal of launching a global mobilisation for the creation of a Permanent International Criminal Court, after the experience of the ad hoc Tribunals.   It took nearly a decade of mobilisation at all levels to see this first segment of international criminal justice established and starting to operate both as a supreme judicial instance in cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and as a deterrent to the commission of such atrocities.   No Peace Without Justice celebrated its twentieth anniversary by organising a conference aimed analysing the fundamental principles and lessons learnt by the ICC over the course of its first 10 years, as well as the challenges and opportunities faced by the Court in carrying out its mandate, particularly in respect of cooperation with States parties and complementarity with national courts.   The conference “20th anniversary of No Peace Without Justice: Challenges and Opportunities of the International Criminal Court” was held at the Italian Senate, in Rome, on 13 November 2014 (from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm).   This conference, which was opened by Pietro Grasso, President of the Italian Senate, and Emma Bonino, former Italian Foreign Minister and founder of No Peace Without Justice, examined those issues through its high-level participants, including James Kirkpatrick Stewart, Deputy Prosecutor of the ICC; Sidiki Kaba, Minister of Justice, Senegal, incoming ASP President; Benedetto Della Vedova, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Italy; Athaliah Lesiba Molokomme, Attorney-General of Botswana;  Binta Mansaray, Registrar, Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone. - See more at: http://www.npwj.org/ICC/ICC-NPWJ-organises-Conference-Italian-Senate-cel...

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Articles

Israeli police destroy home of Palestinian
By Al Jazeera, 19 Nov 2014

Israeli security forces have destroyed the East Jerusalem home of a Palestinian who carried out a suicide car attack in October that left two people dead, the military said, as pitched street battles raged in the aftermath ofan attack on a synagogue in West Jerusalem that killed five Israelis. "The home of the terrorist, who killed an Israeli baby and a young woman on October 22 in a tram station in Jerusalem was destroyed in Silwan," the military said in a statement on Wednesday. Four families who lived in the building - including that of the attacker Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi, who was shot and killed shortly after the October assault - had to evacuate, said Al Jazeera's Dalia Hatuqa, reporting from East Jerusalem. The whole neighbourhood was closed off by the Israeli police, she said. 'Collective punishment'. Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from outside the demolished house in East Jerusalem, said that people in area say that this is a form of "collective punishment" even though the man responsible has been dealt with, and that it is being seen as "a wider way to punish ... even the extended family". The demolition followed angry promises by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would take strict measures to deal with a rising wave of Palestinian attacks that in recent weeks have taken 11 lives - nine in Jerusalem, one in Tel Aviv and one in the West Bank. Sitting amid the rubble inside the family's destroyed house, al-Shaludi's grandmother said she was proud, reported the Associated Press news agency. "No one should feel sorry for us, for our demolished home," she said, refusing to give her name for fear of reprisals. Netanyahu has vowed to revive the controversial policy of home demolitions, which Israel halted in 2005 after determining it was not an effective deterrent for attacks. Meanwhile, Jewish worshippers returned on Wednesday to the synagogue, seeking comfort in prayer amid soaring tensions. Synagogue attackers targeted. In the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal al-Mukaber - the hometown of the two Palestinians who carried out the attack on the Har Nof Synagogue on Tuesday morning killing five Israelis - Israeli troops were confronted by angry Palestinians. The Israeli troops were headed to the area to demolish the homes of the Abu Jamal cousins who carried out the synagogue attack. Four rabbis - three with Israeli-US citizenship and a fourth who was an Israeli-Briton - were killed by Palestinians armed with a gun and knives. A police officer died of his wounds hours after the attack. The victims were identified as 59-year-old Moshe Twersky, Kalman Levine, 55; Aryeh Kupinsky, 43, and Avram Shmuel Goldberg, 68. Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from West Jerusalem, said the confrontation had so far prevented the Israelis from demolishing the homes of Ghassan Abu Jamal and Oday Abu Jamal.
 

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North Korea: UN Condemns Crimes Against Humanity
By Human Rights Watch, 18 Nov 2014

(New York) – The United Nations Security Council should act on a historic General Assembly resolution by referring the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 18, 2014, the General Assembly endorsed a recent UN Commission of Inquiry report detailing crimes against humanity in North Korea and recommended that the Security Council discuss the report and consider an ICC referral. “Today’s General Assembly resolution affirms the need for a tribunal to address the North Korean government’s unspeakable crimes,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director. “The Security Council should follow up by referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court to investigate the long list of crimes against humanity.” The North Korea resolution passed by a vote of 111 to 19, with 55 abstentions. China and Russia, longtime supporters of the North Korean government, voted against the resolution. (A separate draft text tabled by Cuba, without key passages endorsing the Commission of Inquiry report and recommending debate in the Security Council, was defeated by a vote of 40 to 77, with 50 abstentions). While the resolution passed overwhelmingly, several countries that are members of the International Criminal Court, including Senegal, Bangladesh, and Nicaragua, abstained on the vote. North Korea had made recent diplomatic overtures seemingly to try to affect the vote, such as by offering for the first time to engage with the UN human rights rapporteur on North Korea and participating in the Universal Periodic Review process at the UN Human Rights Council. The Commission of Inquiry report, issued in February 2014, documented massive crimes against humanity in North Korea, including deliberate starvation, forced labor, executions, torture, rape, and infanticide, among other crimes – most of them committed in North Korea’s political prison camp systems. The 400-page report concluded that the bulk of the crimes against humanity were committed “pursuant to policies set at the highest levels of the state.” It recommended that the international community take action to ensure accountability, including through possible referral to the International Criminal Court. The report noted that the gravity, scale, and nature of ongoing abuses were “without parallel in the contemporary world.”
 

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ICC’s Intolerance of Impunity Does Not Make It an Enemy of Peace
By International Center for Transitional Justice, 17 Nov 2014

The early years of the ICC saw great debate on the meaning of the “interests of justice.” Indeed, the drafters of the Rome Statute left the concept ripe for misinterpretation. In 2007 the ICC Prosecutor tried to put to bed the notion that, however complex the ‘Peace versus Justice’ debate is, its solution does not lie in an expansive understanding of this idea. There is no prospect of this ICC policy changing now. The tensions that existed remain. And today, just as then, it is no use trying to disguise impunity measures as justice alternatives. If we want to find ways for justice and peace to work together we need to accept that there are positive examples of this happening; that there is significant flexibility for the Court in terms of timing; and that the ICC follows in a path where the commitment against impunity was enshrined some years before by the United Nations. The solutions require patience and respect from all sides. The ICC can continue to learn how to operate tactfully in difficult situations up to a point, but it cannot be asked to do the impossible. Much more can be learned about the timing and profile of its investigations, when to start and when to hold off. But the ICC cannot endorse impunity measures any more than others committed to the defense of human rights and the struggle for peace and justice. In 1998 the UN Secretary-General advised his mediators not to endorse peace agreements that granted amnesty for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. The move came a year after the UN Human Rights Commission adopted the Joinet Principles, which highlight the legal obligations of states to prosecute serious human rights violations, make the facts known to victims, make reparations and fix abusive institutions. In July 1999 the Secretary General’s representative in the negotiations to end the conflict in Sierra Leone refused to endorse the amnesty provided by the Lomé Agreement. Subsequently the UN helped establish the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which prosecuted those deemed most responsible for serious crimes, including former Liberian President Charles Taylor. The peace held. The Rome Statute did not sneak up unawares with its blunt process and idealistic vision, depriving mediators of the golden arrow in their quiver of tools. It was no outlier: itformalized standards that had already been adopted by the UN Secretary General and other UN bodies and regional human rights courts. But it went one crucial step further – requiring that if national authorities did not do what the law required, the ICC would step in. The poster-child for ICC flexibility is Colombia. The ICC has had the situation there under “preliminary examination” since 2004. For ten years the Colombian authorities and others have sought to demonstrate that it would be better not to move to the next level of opening a formal ICC investigation. The ICC Prosecutor has watched carefully, made several visits and monitored legal processes, general elections, paramilitary demobilizations and peace negotiations with the FARC. All the while, the Colombian justice system has prosecuted some paramilitary leaders, hundreds of politicians and almost a thousand low- and mid-ranked soldiers involved in the murder of civilians.

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A consensual roadmap for the truth, justice and reconciliation process in Mali
By FIDH, 16 Nov 2014

 On 6 and 7 November 2014, FIDH and AMDH held an international seminar in Bamako on transitional justice and national reconciliation in Mali, opened by Prime Minister Moussa Mara. The 230 participants adopted a roadmap for the reconciliation process in Mali which rejects any form of amnesty for past crimes. The participants specifically requested that a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (CVJR) be composed of qualified and independent persons who will be able to listen to victims of all forms of political repression and grave violations of human rights perpetrated by governments and armed groups and can recommend reparation measures for the victims as well as extensive state reforms that include the introduction of guarantees of non-recurrence of human rights violations and respect for the rights of all citizens, without exception. Additionally, the participants stated that impunity should no longer be tolerated and international and national justice must be able to do its work without political interference or intervention. While negotiations are currently being conducted in Algiers between certain armed groups and the government of Mali, these measures need to be accepted by the parties and implemented by the government and the CVJR, if true lasting peace that is beneficial to all the people is to be achieved. “The parties negotiating in Algiers must listen to the call for truth and justice from all of the Malian people who massively reject amnesty for past and present crimes”, declared Souhayr Belhassen, Honorary FIDH President, at the close of the Bamako seminar (see her statement [in French]). 230 participants attended this seminar including representatives of the Malian civil society, political parties, national political and judicial authorities, security and defence forces, religious and traditional leaders, as well as victims of human rights violations, journalists and academics from all over the country. A dozen national and international experts contributed to the participants’ discussion, in particular by relating similar experiences of national reconciliation in Togo, Morocco, Tunisia, Burundi, Guinea and even South Africa and Ghana.

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