In contemporary discourse, few concepts have garnered as much momentum as transitional justice. While it remains contested, a broad definition can be put forth as ‘how societies respond to the legacies of massive and serious human rights violations’. Thus far, the presence of any meaningful efforts at transitional justice in Israel-Palestine have been few and far between, with existing endeavours focused on international criminal proceedings.
Continue readingDavid Hoile
The Assembly of State Parties, the body charged with the management and oversight of the International Criminal Court, is meeting this week in The Hague. It brings together smug western politicians, lawyers infused with their own self-importance, bored diplomats, naïve fresh-faced interns and a slew of excitable, self-righteous human rights activists from a variety of well-funded western non-governmental organisations. Having spent several days in attendance at this annual jamboree and having spent several years closely observing the behaviour of the ICC, Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes comes immediately to mind. Continue reading
Written by Garima Tiwari
Source: http://www.beforeitnews.com
More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed in the 50-day conflict in July and August, about 70 percent of them civilians, according to the U.N. Seventy-one Israeli soldiers and civilians were killed in combat and in rocket and mortar strikes. [i]The chief Palestinian Authority negotiator, Saeb Erekat, claimed that 96 percent of Gazans killed in the summer’s Israel-Hamas conflict were civilians, reiterated PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s charge of Israeli “genocide,” and accused Israel of seeking to impose apartheid on the Palestinians.[ii] Continue reading
The African Union has had a draft resolution that will merge the current continental judicial bodies- the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court of Justice and Human Rights- into one judicial body- African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights. Part of the resolution proposes that the new court should have an enhanced criminal jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide on the continent. Without getting into the merits or demerits of such a step, the sting is in the tail of additional proposed changes. Continue reading
“Mr. Kenyatta is excused from continuous presence at other times during the trial. This excusal is strictly for purposes of accommodating the discharge of his duties as the President of Kenya”. With these words the ICC trial Chamber in the case The Prosecutor v Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta made one of the most significant decisions regarding the trial of senior state officers. The court was faced with an unprecedented situation: the leader of a country is, for the first time, due to stand trial before an international tribunal on charges of having committed war crimes. Continue reading
A Contrario ICL 