Rights chief also warns Britain will be ‘judged harshly by history for its failure to help prevent civilian slaughter in Gaza’
The UK has been accused by Amnesty International of “deliberately destabilising” human rights on the global stage for its own political ends.
In its annual global report, released today, the organisation said Britain was weakening human rights protections nationally and globally, amid a near-breakdown of international law.
Continue reading...The court will investigate crimes against humanity committed during the African country’s two civil wars between 1989 and 2003
Senators in Liberia have voted overwhelmingly to establish a war crimes court, two decades after civil conflict ended in the west African country.
The new court will investigate and try crimes against humanity and corruption committed during Liberia’s two civil wars between 1989 and 2003, which killed up to 250,000 people.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Rights groups denounce negotiations with Rapid Support Forces, accused of ethnic cleansing and war crimes
Foreign Office officials are holding secret talks with the paramilitary group that has been waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan for the past year.
News that the British government and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are engaged in clandestine negotiations has prompted warnings that such talks risk legitimising the notorious militia – which continues to commit multiple war crimes – while undermining Britain’s moral credibility in the region.
Continue reading...Johnny Mercer given 10 days to reveal source of claims British troops engaged in war crimes
The minister for veterans’ affairs, Johnny Mercer, has been given 10 days to reveal the source of allegations British troops engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan, or face a potential prison sentence.
Mercer in effect admitted last month in front of the public inquiry into the claims that he believed members of the SAS had engaged in dozens of unlawful killings of Afghan civilians between 2010 and 2013.
Continue reading...Prospect of Israel facing war crimes charges has moved closer after UN condemnation of Gaza aid restrictions
The accusation by the UN and other humanitarians that Israel may be committing a war crime by deliberately starving Gaza’s population is likely to significantly increase the prospect of legal culpability for the country, including at the international court of justice.
Amid reports that the Israel Defense Forces are hiring dozens of lawyers to defend against anticipated cases and legal challenges, the charge that Israel has triggered a “man-made famine” by deliberately obstructing the entry of aid into Gaza is backed by an increasing body of evidence.
Continue reading...Activists say public debate has been shut down by overhyped claims of imminent war since Ukraine invasion
The Swedish flag will be raised on Monday outside Nato’s HQ in Brussels. But while the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, basks in the glow of his country finally joining the western military alliance after months of delays, Sweden’s once thriving peace movement is smarting.
Once widely visible in debates and on the streets – particularly over nuclear weapons, disarmament and the Vietnam war – the movement had already been on the wane since the end of the cold war.
Continue reading...Salvatore Mancuso was taken into police custody and is expected to cooperate with investigation into war crimes in 1990s and 2000s
A Colombian warlord found responsible for more than 1,500 murders and cases of forced disappearance has been returned to his native country after serving a drug-trafficking sentence in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship.
Salvatore Mancuso arrived in Bogotá’s El Dorado airport on a charter flight that also carried dozens of Colombians who had been deported from the US after illegally crossing the southern border. Mancuso was quickly taken into police custody, wearing a green helmet and a bulletproof vest.
Continue reading...Witnesses claim victims shot ‘execution style’ during house raids after clashes between government forces and Fano rebels
Ethiopian government troops went door-to-door killing dozens of civilians last month in a town in the country’s Amhara region, according to residents, who said the bloodshed took place after clashes with local militia.
The killings in Merawi appear to be one of the deadliest episodes in Amhara since a rebellion by Fano, an armed Amhara group, erupted last year over a disputed plan to disarm regional forces.
Continue reading...Human rights worker Ayman Lubbad is among the Palestinian prisoners claiming abuse in Israeli custody, where six have died
The Gaza-based human rights activist Ayman Lubbad has not seen his wife and three children for more than a month, since he was ordered to strip to his underwear in the street outside his home, then driven away with other Palestinian men for a week of abuse and detention.
He was tortured and humiliated, he said, giving one of various accounts of recent Israeli abuse of Palestinians in detention; at least six have died, and one autopsy report showed serious injuries, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Continue reading...A historic trial, which will call on 61 witnesses worldwide, is expected to set a precedent for global corporations in foreign jurisdictions
Before the arrival of Lundin Oil in the town of Leer, now part of South Sudan, life there was peaceful, says George Tai Kuony. His childhood was that of a “typical village boy”, driving cattle, helping his family and going to school. But in June 1998, when he was 15, armed forces entered the town and changed his life for ever.
He fled, became separated from his family and hid for seven days before he was able to return. “When we got there, Leer wasn’t the town I had left seven days ago,” says the 40-year-old lawyer and human rights defender. “Everything was burned down, everything was destroyed. I could see the bodies of dead people lying in the street.” As a result of the conflict, he lost his father, and later his mother and one sibling.
Continue reading...Council’s commissioner for human rights says some people prosecuted in the Hague for war crimes ‘return to their communities as heroes’
The failure of the countries of the former Yugoslavia to address their violent past has had devastating consequences for human rights and could ultimately lead to a return to conflict in the region, according to a new Council of Europe report.
The report, published on Thursday by the council’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, said the region has been backsliding for many years on seeking justice and accountability for the brutal wars of the 1990s in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, which killed more than 130,000 people.
Continue reading...ACT supreme court says law provides no duty to members of the military to act in the public interest
David McBride has lost a bid to stave off his trial after again failing to convince a court that soldiers have a duty to act in the public interest.
On Wednesday, the ACT supreme court delivered a blow to McBride as he prepared for his jury trial over the alleged leaking of confidential military information to journalists.
Continue reading...Security Force Monitor finds 64% of senior army officers led units allegedly committing killings, rapes, torture and disappearances
New research into alleged war crimes in Myanmar has concluded that the majority of senior commanders in the Myanmar military, many of whom hold powerful political positions in the country, were responsible for crimes including rape, torture, killings and forced disappearances carried out by units under their command between 2011 and 2023.
The research, by the Security Force Monitor (SFM), a project run by Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, states that 64% – 51 of 79 – of all Myanmar’s senior military commanders are responsible for war crimes. It claims that the most serious perpetrator of human rights violations is Gen Mya Tun Oo, Myanmar’s deputy prime minister, former defence minister and a member of the ruling military council.
Continue reading...International humanitarian law dictates the rules combatants should follow – with a central tenet that ‘civilians should not be targeted’
Amid the horror of the attacks by Hamas on Israel and the response by the Israeli military in Gaza, there have been calls for both sides to abide by international law and accusations of breaches.
So what is the framework of international laws that is supposed to govern war or armed conflicts?
Continue reading...Human rights lawyers are working with Ukraine’s public prosecutor to prepare dossier to submit to the international criminal court
Human rights lawyers working with Ukraine’s public prosecutor are preparing a war crimes dossier to submit to the international criminal court (ICC) accusing Russia of deliberately causing starvation during the 18-month-long conflict.
The aim is to document instances where the Russian invaders used hunger as a weapon of war, providing evidence for the ICC to launch the first prosecution of its kind that could indict the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Witnesses say federal forces have been looting villages and shooting farmers in their hunt for defiant Fano militiamen
Ethiopian soldiers killed more than 70 civilians and looted properties in a town in Amhara, multiple witnesses have claimed.
The killings took place in Majete, a rural town in north-eastern Ethiopia, after two weeks of heavy fighting between federal soldiers and the Fano, an Amhara militia.
Continue reading...Prosecutors say ex-chair and CEO were complicit in atrocities by Sudanese army and militias, which both deny
Two former executives of a Swedish oil company have gone on trial in Stockholm, accused of complicity in war crimes in Sudan between 1999 and 2003 – charges they both deny.
Ian Lundin, a Swede, and Alex Schneiter, a Swiss national, are accused of asking Sudan’s government to make its military responsible for security at the site of one of Lundin Oil’s exploration fields, which later led to aerial bombings, killing of civilians and burning of entire villages, according to the prosecution.
Continue reading...Khaled Nezzar is to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity during 1991-2002 Algerian civil war
Victims of the 1991-2002 Algerian civil war have been given hope that they will finally receive justice after the highly unusual announcement by Swiss authorities that a former Algerian minister of defence is to stand trial in Switzerland on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Khaled Nezzar is set to be the highest-ranking military official ever tried for war crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states to investigate and prosecute people suspected of having committed international crimes regardless of where they were committed, their nationality, or the nationality of the victims.
Continue reading...Medical records from across the region show sexual violence continues to be used ‘to intimidate and terrorise communities’
Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers continue a widespread and systematic campaign of rape in Tigray despite the peace agreement signed in November last year, a new report reveals.
In the first report to document sexual violence – using hundreds of medical records from the start of the conflict in November 2020 through to June 2023 – healthcare professionals recount cases of gang-rape, sexual slavery and murder, including the killing of children.
Continue reading...Latest atrocities in Sudan war include the shelling of house of traditional healer, who died with her children and neighbours
People trapped in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman say civilians are being deliberately targeted in shelling by the warring parties.
A woman who had been helping wounded soldiers was killed along with her three children and six neighbours when her home was shelled by Sudanese army forces earlier this week.
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