Ending Impunity

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-80
Author(s):  
Tobias Hagmann ◽  
Mohammed Mealin Seid
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Comprehensive Strategy

Impunity in Somalia has become so deeply entrenched over the years that it has become the norm. Since the Siad Barre period (1969–1991), both local and foreign actors have repeatedly committed war crimes and other serious rights abuses that remain unaddressed to this day. This chapter explains why accountability is not only a human rights imperative, but a cornerstone of a more effective political strategy in Somalia. The chapter briefly reviews the main abuses and atrocities of the last 30 years; identifies the reasons why perpetrators have literally got away with murder; identifies the costs of continued impunity and inaction; and proposes a number of measures in view of a comprehensive strategy to foster both redress and accountability in Somalia.

Risk, Desire and Adaptation: The Paradox of Queer Solidarity and the Political Possibility of Death Under Neoliberalism and Homonationalism

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Natalie Kouri-Towe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sexual Rights ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Strategy I

In 2015, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Toronto (QuAIA Toronto) announced that it was retiring. This article examines the challenges of queer solidarity through a reflection on the dynamics between desire, attachment and adaptation in political activism. Tracing the origins and sites of contestation over QuAIA Toronto's participation in the Toronto Pride parade, I ask: what does it mean for a group to fashion its own end? Throughout, I interrogate how gestures of solidarity risk reinforcing the very systems that activists desire to resist. I begin by situating contemporary queer activism in the ideological and temporal frameworks of neoliberalism and homonationalism. Next, I turn to the attempts to ban QuAIA Toronto and the term ‘Israeli apartheid’ from the Pride parade to examine the relationship between nationalism and sexual citizenship. Lastly, I examine how the terms of sexual rights discourse require visible sexual subjects to make individual rights claims, and weighing this risk against political strategy, I highlight how queer solidarities are caught in a paradox symptomatic of our times: neoliberalism has commodified human rights discourses and instrumentalised sexualities to serve the interests of hegemonic power and obfuscate state violence. Thinking through the strategies that worked and failed in QuAIA Toronto's seven years of organising, I frame the paper though a proposal to consider political death as a productive possibility for social movement survival in the 21stcentury.

scholarly journals Nullum Crimen and International Criminal Law: The Relevance of the Foreseeability Test

2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-531
Author(s):  
Harmen van der Wilt
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
European Court ◽  
Starting Point

This article traces the development of the foreseeability test in the context of the nullum crimen principle. While the European Court of Human Rights has introduced the ‘accessibility and foreseeability’ criteria long ago in the Sunday Times case, the Court has only recently started to apply this standard with respect to international crimes. In the Kononov case, judges of the European Court of Human Rights exhibited strongly divergent opinions on the question whether the punishment of alleged war crimes that had been committed in 1944 violated the nullum crimen principle. According to this author, the dissension of the judges demonstrates the lack of objective foreseeability, which should have served as a starting point for the assessment of the subjective foreseeability and a – potentially exculpating – mistake of law of the perpetrator. The Court should therefore have concluded that the nullum crimen principle had been violated.

scholarly journals SYRIA – “THE WAR WITH MULTIPLE PROXIES”. VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-178
Author(s):  
Daniela Vetina Ene
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Amnesty International ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
The Arab Spring

The civil war in Syria, triggered by the pro-democracy demonstrations of the "Arab Spring", was a complicated combination of religious, cultural and ethnic-identity contradictions. The non-international conflict was turned into a "battlefield" for foreign powers, which led to the transformation of a civil war into a "war with multiple proxies". The United Nations' efforts to mediate the conflict, based on a six-point plan, remained in the draft phase. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the al-Assad regime, which has widely used non-discriminatory weapons banned in violation of the Geneva Conventions, 1949. The Bashār al-Assad regime is accused by the international community of being guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but attempts to incriminate it have failed.

UN human rights expert calls for inquiry into war crimes in Sri Lanka

BMJ ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 340 (jan13 2) ◽  
pp. c174-c174
Author(s):  
J. Zarocostas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
War Crimes

Representing Japan, Defending Human Rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-142
Author(s):  
Bill Emmott
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Minorities ◽  
International Human ◽  
Peace And Reconciliation ◽  
Rights Issues

When Miyoshi Mari joined the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980 as a trainee diplomat she was the only female recruit out of twenty-eight; in 2016, the ministry recruited ten females and eighteen males. So recruitment is not yet equal but there will in future be a much larger number of potential female ambassadors to follow in Miyoshi-san’s footsteps. She was motivated to become a diplomat by an interest in peace and reconciliation, which similarly drew Osa Yukie to study and then become active in international human rights issues. Osa-san has studied indigenous minorities including Japan’s own Ainu but more recently has specialized in the issues of war crimes and genocide.

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