On September 26

(credit)

On this day in ...
... 1992 (20 years ago today), The New York Times quoted "senior Administration officials" who said that "'as many as 3,000' Muslim men, women and children were killed in May and June at Serbian-run detention camps near the Bosnian town of Brcko." The report of the atrocity -- said to be the 1st for which U.S. officials had "independent information corroborating" a reported massacre -- coincided with the voicing, by Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, of U.S. support for an inquiry. The ensuing U.N. war crimes inquiry commission would be headed by DePaul Law Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni.

(Prior September 26 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Write On! International fact-finding, in Florence

(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers)

This news via e-mail from Peking University Law Professor YI Ping (right), Senior Adviser at FICHL, the Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law:
Organizers are seeking papers to be presented at the annual LI Haopei Seminar, to be held May 20, 2013, in Florence, Italy. The topic this year is "Quality Control in International Fact-Finding Outside Criminal Justice for Core International Crimes."
At this 2013 seminar, Richard J. Goldstone, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia, will deliver the the 2013 LI Haopei Lecture. The lecture series is named after a Chinese international law expert who died in 1993 while serving as a Judge at the ICTY. Also scheduled to speak are European University Institute Professor Martin Scheinin and DePaul University Law Professor Emeritus M. Cherif Bassiouni.
The event is a joint project of FICHL, the European University Institute, and Peking University International Law Institute.
With regard to the theme, organizers write:

Go On! Victims & the ICC, in Oslo

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

Marking the 10th anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court will be a seminar entitled Societal Reintegration of Victims of Core International Crimes, to be held June 7, 2012, in Oslo, Norway. The event's sponsored by the Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law and further supported by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Faculty of Law, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo.
Organizers write:

'[P]articipation in criminal proceedings may have little if any effect on the reintegration of victims in society. Reparations may assist victims during the process of transition that societal reintegration entails, but only to a limited extent. Full reintegration entails a much broader spectrum of normalization in the lives of victims: it requires a return to work or education, the housing market, family structures, civil society engagement, and social inclusion. The process has a significant socio-psychological dimension. What are the concrete needs of victims for successful reintegration? What are the relevant limitations of the ICC's current mandates regarding victim participation, assistance and reparations? How far does the responsibility of the international community extend? Is there a need for national regulation to foster the societal reintegration of victims of core international crimes?'

Among the persons scheduled to speak: ICC Prosecutor-Elect Fatou Bensouda; M. Cherif Bassiouni, Emeritus Professor of Law at DePaul University in Chicago; Norwegian State Secretary Gry Larsen; Norwegian Ambassador Anniken Ramberg Krutnes; Jasminka Džumhur, Ombudsperson of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Nora Sveaass, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Oslo; and Maria Luisa Martinod-Jacome, Chief of the ICC's Victims and Witnesses Unit.
Full program and details on registration here.

Warrants sought against Gaddafi + 2

As anticipated in this post, international arrest warrants were requested today for the leader of Libya and 2 others.
In his statement announcing that it had presented evidence and made its request to a 3-judge Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Criminal Court (left), ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said:

The evidence shows that Muammar Gaddafi, personally, ordered attacks on unarmed Libyan civilians. His forces attacked Libyan civilians in their homes and in the public space, repressed demonstrations with live ammunition, used heavy artillery against participants in funeral processions, and placed snipers to kill those leaving mosques after the prayers.

Also alleged to have committed crimes against humanity in Libya since mid-February are 2 members of what Moreno-Ocampo's statement called the "inner circle" on which Gaddafi relies "to implement a systematic policy of suppressing any challenge to his authority." (credit for 2006 photo) The 2 are:
► Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's son who has been serving as a spokesperson for the government, and who "threatened 'rivers of blood'" when conflict erupted in late February; and
► Abdullah al-Sanousi, the head of Libyan intelligence.
Even as it awaits the Pre-Trial Chamber decision on whether to issue these warrants, Moreno-Ocampo said that the Office of the Prosecution will continue investigating the situation in Libya, a matter opened in response to a U.N. Security Council referral. The Prosecutor mentioned areas of particular concern; specifically allegations of:
► "rapes committed in Libya";
► "attacks against sub-Saharan Africans wrongly perceived to be mercenaries"; and
► "war crimes committed by different parties during the armed conflict that started towards the end of February."
Forthcoming in June will be the report of the inquiry commission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council and led by our colleague M. Cherif Bassiouni.

Go On! Human trafficking conference

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

"Which Way Home" -- a reference to the issue of human trafficking -- is the title of the 20th Annual Northern Illinois Law Review symposium to be held will be held April 14 and 15 in DeKalb.
The program will begin with a showing at 7:30 p.m. on April 14 of the Oscar-nominated film of the same name, about which IntLawGrrls posted a while back. The showing will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Sara McDowell, Senior Immigration Attorney for the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, who represented the children in the film.
During the daylong symposium that will follow on April 15, speakers -- including IntLawGrrl Karen E. Bravo and keynote lecturer M. Cherif Bassiouni -- will identify key areas of human trafficking, use of the U.S. court system to combat trafficking, and future policy regarding trafficking. Symposium Editor Emily M. Martin writes:

Although human trafficking is often thought as a distant, international issue, in reality, it is right outside our backdoor. Chicago and Rockford are both human trafficking hubs and Illinois recently passed the strongest anti-trafficking laws in the country.

Details here.