On February 1, 2014, the Rapporteurship on the Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Persons of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights became fully operational. According to the press release, the Rapporteurship was created in November 2013 with the purpose of “addressing issues of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and body diversity.” On January 31, 2014, the IACHR designated Commissioner Tracy Robinson as the first Rapporteur. The Rapporteurship continues the work of the Unit for the Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex...
International Law in Brief
International Law in Brief (ILIB) is a forum that provides updates on current developments in international law from the editors of ASIL's International Legal Materials.
On February 10, 2014, prosecutors for the military commission trials at Guantanamo Bay added a charge of conspiracy against Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, an alleged high-level emissary with al-Queda. He is already charged with various terrorism-related charges. According to the news story, this new charge sets up “a test of whether Congress has the power to make a conspiracy a prosecutable offense in a war-crimes tribunal, despite the offense not being recognized as an international war crime.” The conspiracy charge arose from a situation in which al-Iraqi was a member of al-Qaeda’s ruling Shura...
On February 11, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a ruling in Aamer & Siddique v. Obama, a case in which three Guantanamo detainees, via habeas actions, sought “a preliminary injunction preventing the government from subjecting them to force-feeding.” Two separate district judges had denied their requests on the ground that the Military Commissions Act had stripped them of jurisdiction to consider Guantanamo detainees’ challenges. On appeal, the D.C. Circuit held that the detainees could properly challenge their force-feeding at the hands of jailers...
On February 11, 2014, the Trial Chamber of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon ruled orally that the case against Hassan Habib Merhi should be joined with the case against Salim Jamil Ayyash, Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra. According to the press release, the Trial Chamber will issue a written decision “in due course.” All five accused have been indicted for their alleged role in the February 2005 attack that killed twenty-two people, including former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The trial in the Prosecutor v. Ayyash et al. case...
On February 11, 2014, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda delivered its judgment in The Prosecutor v. Augustin Ndindiliyimana, François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, and Innocent Sagahutu. According to the press release, the Appeals Chamber “revers[ed] the convictions of Ndindiliyimana and Nzuwonemeye in their entirety, revers[ed] certain convictions for Sagahutu, leading to a reduction of his sentence from 20 to 15 years of imprisonment, and reject[ed], in part, the Prosecution’s appeal.” The accused persons played various roles in the Rwanda conflict....
On February 7, 2014, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, announced in a statement released both in text and on video that she will open a preliminary examination into the situation in the Central African Republic (CAR). Bensouda stated that “the plight of civilians in CAR since September 2012 has gone from bad to worse.” In light of allegations of “killings, acts of rape and sexual slavery, destruction of property, pillaging, torture, forced displacement and recruitment and use of children in hostilities,” Bensouda “concluded that these incidents and the...
On February 7, 2014, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court published a DRAFT Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender Based Crimes. According to the press release, the final version of the paper will be published in March 2014, and the OTP is accepting comments on the draft until February 23, 2014. The draft paper, “[r]ecognising the challenges and obstacles to effective investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender based crimes,” announces that “the Office of the Prosecutor has elevated this issue to one of its key strategic goals in its strategic plan 2013...
On January 31, 2014, the European Council published a Decision and Implementing Regulation “concerning restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities in view of the situation in Tunisia.” The Decision and Regulation extend the 2011 Decision and restrictive measures, which had been due to expire on January 31, 2014, until January 31, 2015.
The forty-five individuals named in the Annex are subject to a European Union-wide asset freeze and travel ban. The European Council amended the stated reasons for inclusion on the list to read: “Person subject to judicial...
On January 27, 2014, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia delivered its judgment in the Prosecutor v. Vlastimir Đorđević case. According to the press release, the Appeals Chamber confirmed Đorđević’s “guilt for crimes committed by Serbian forces during a campaign of terror and violence against Kosovo Albanians during the conflict in Kosovo.” The Appeals Chamber also “partially granted the appeals of both the Defence and the Prosecution, reducing Đorđević’s prison sentence from twenty-seven years to eighteen years.” Đorđević served...
On February 4, 2014, the cour d’assises in Paris began hearing the trial of Pascal Simbikangwa, the former Chief of Intelligence in Rwanda. According to news reports, he was arrested in 2008 while living under an alias on the French Indian Ocean Island of Mayotte. He is charged with complicity in genocide and in crimes against humanity. Simbikangwa denies the charges, and “[h]is lawyers argue that he is being made a scapegoat for the killings.”