Brigid Inder has been named the special gender adviser to Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, or the ICC. With more than two decades of working in international and domestic justice, women’s human rights and as a political adviser in United Nations negotiations, Inder’s new role is to advise Bensouda’s office … Read more
Thomas Lubanga, the 52-year-old Congolese militant convicted by the International Criminal Court in March for the war crimes of conscripting and enlisting child soldiers under age 15 and using them in hostilities, was sentenced today to 14 years’ imprisonment. The children were forced to fight a conflict in northeastern Congo from Sept. 1, … Read more
Libyan authorities have released the four International Criminal Court staff members who have been held in Zintan after their visit on June 7, 2012, to Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the son of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, to notify him of his legal rights. Qaddafi, in custody by Zintan militias, has been charged with crimes against humanity by … Read more
The International Criminal Court has announced that Libya’s attorney general, Abdelaziz al-Hassadi, and other top Libyans have visited its headquarters in The Hague, saying that Hassadi brought information on the status of the four court staff members imprisoned by militias in Zintan, Libya. The court did not release further news on the detainees, who have … Read more
As the 300-member United Nations unarmed observer mission in Syria suspends its work because of intensifying violence in the country, Britain and Switzerland are beginning efforts to refer the Syrian situation to the International Criminal Court. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, announced recently that his office is preparing a case against the Syrian government … Read more
The African Union, whose members decided three years ago not to honor an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been forced to find a new site for its regional summit in July after the small southern African nation of Malawi said it would refuse entry to the Sudanese leader. Bashir is wanted … Read more
Four staff members of the International Criminal Court have been detained in Libya since June 7, the court announced today from its base in The Hague. Sang-Hyun Song, the court’s president, has asked for the staffers’ immediate release, saying: “We are very concerned about the safety of our staff in the absence of any contact … Read more
The International Criminal Court‘s judgment against the warlord Thomas Lubanga for conscripting child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed that “a permanent international criminal court is on the job,” Stephen Rapp, ambassador at large for the US State Department, said at Columbia University Law School this month. The Lubanga guilty verdict in … Read more
No American diplomat or scholar of international law has been more deeply involved than David Scheffer in the creation of virtually every war crimes court from the catastrophic implosion of Yugoslavia to the long-overdue reckoning for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Now, in a new book, “All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the … Read more
People who deal professionally with victims of physical and psychological torture want to not only heal their patients but also stop torture dead in its tracks. So they were pleased to learn that like other individuals or groups, they could submit evidence they had gathered to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, says … Read more
The Security Council adopted a presidential statement today backing Kofi Annan, the joint United Nations-Arab League special envoy to Syria, on his mission to resolve the year-long crisis there. Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told the press after the adoption that his country’s stance on Syria had not changed and that the statement reflected what … Read more
Thomas Lubanga, the Congolese militant accused of war crimes by recruiting child soldiers under age 15 to fight in conflicts in the eastern region of his country, has been found guilty of the war crimes by a three-judge chamber presiding at his case at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The decision was made … Read more
The International Criminal Court is ready to announce its first-ever verdict, in the trial of Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese warlord accused of committing war crimes for recruiting child soldiers under age 15. The verdict will be read on March 14 at the court’s headquarters in The Hague, where the judicial body began operating in 2004. … Read more
The International Criminal Court will swear in six new judges on March 9 and elect, by absolute majority, a new president of the court and two new vice presidents. The court’s 18 judges will vote in the election, with several most likely to run for the three-year presidency themselves, though the incumbent, Judge Sang-Hyun Song … Read more
On Dec. 16, without fanfare, President Barack Obama issued an executive orderestablishing for the first time a global American policy to advance women’s roles in making and keeping peace. The absence or marginalization of women from international security affairs has been a cause of much United Nations attention for more than a decade, right up … Read more
Fatou Bensouda has been named the new prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, nominated by consensus by the Assembly of States Parties, which manages the court. She begins her nine-year term on June 16, 2012. Bensouda replaces Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine who seeks the spotlight and has served as the court’s first and only prosecutor, … Read more
The International Criminal Court has released the names of four candidates short-listed for the December 2011 election of the chief prosecutor to replace Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine whose nonrenewable term is expiring in June 2012. The court is the first and only permanent international court that tries people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and … Read more
