Conflict Prevention and Mitigation / Post Conflict Reconstruction

I. INTRODUCTION

On July 14, 2008, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court ("ICC", "Court") applied to Pre-Trial Chamber III of the Court for an arrest warrant against the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir.[1] This is the first time that the Prosecutor filed charges against a sitting head of state.

The United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises,[1] John Ruggie, submitted his final Report to the Human Rights Council on June 3, 2008.[2] The Report and its attendant documents

I. Introduction

The Bush administration has alleged that North Korea provided assistance to Syria's efforts to build a nuclear reactor, which Israeli warplanes attacked and destroyed on September 6, 2007.[1] The U.S.

On April 3, 2008, Trial Chamber I (Trial Chamber) of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) delivered the judgment in Prosecutor v.

Introduction

In early November 2007, the Spanish Supreme Court's Criminal Chamber ("Supreme Court") released its judgment upholding, by a vote of 11-4, the conviction of former Argentine naval officer Adolfo Scilingo for his involvement in murders and illegal detentions in Argentina. Scilingo was convicted by a trial chamber of the Audiencia Nacional ("Audiencia"), Spain's special court for serious international crimes.

On September 16, 2007, security guards employed by Blackwater USA (Blackwater) fired on a crowd in Baghdad's Nisour square, killing 17 people. At the time of this incident, Blackwater was under contract with the U.S. Department of State to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq. This incident triggered controversy in Iraq, the United States, and the international community concerning what law applied to Blackwater's actions and to the actions of other private security contractors (PSCs) hired by the United States to provide services in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the second week of September 2007, leading U.S. military and diplomatic officials provided long-awaited reports to Congress and the President on U.S. political and military activities in Iraq. These hearings focused attention on how much progress U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts have made in Iraq. Although debate surrounding these events centered on the question of the withdrawal of U.S. troops, the testimony and hearings connect the ongoing attempts by the U.S. government to adjust to the challenges presented by waging COIN campaigns.