News updates

(For older news updates, please visit our news archive.)

31 May 2023: The appeals chamber at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals concluded the retrial of former Milosevic allies, Stanisic and Simatovic, overturning a prior acquittal for involvement in a joint criminal enterprise and raising their sentences to 15 years.

25 May 2023: The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals announced that South African police authorities have arrested Fulgence Kayishema, who allegedly orchestrated the killing of 2000 Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide.

23 May 2023: A report published by exiled Belarusian opponent leaders has accused the Lukashenko-led ruling government in Belarus of allegedly participating in the illegal deportation of children from Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine to recreation camps in Belarus.

22 May 2023: A court in the Netherlands will hear the first trial for crimes committed against the Yazidis under the principle of universal jurisdiction, with a Dutch woman accused of committing slavery as a crime against humanity and terrorism.

17 May 2023: The Council of Europe has established a register of damage to record evidence of Russian crimes of aggression in Ukraine, in a first step towards creating a future international compensation mechanism for victims of the war in Ukraine.

15 May 2023: United Nations human rights experts have called on the Taliban to stop meting out capital punishment and other “brutal and undignified” forms of punishment in Afghanistan that constitute torture and violate international law.

12 May 2023: A fact-finding report published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has concluded that over 500 people were killed by the Malian army and foreign fighters in the town of Moura in Mali in March 2022.

11 May 2023: French authorities have launched a war crimes investigation into the death of Arman Soldin, an Agence France-Presse reporter, who was killed recently while reporting on the Ukraine war.

10 May 2023: The French Parliament has designated the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group as a terrorist group and has called upon the European Union to register Wagner on the EU list of terrorist groups. The Parliament’s resolution is non-binding.

8 May 2023: In a new universal jurisdiction case, Belgian authorities have arrested an Iraqi immigrant suspected of being an al-Qaeda cell member on charges of terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity, for his role in the 2009-10 Baghdad bombings.

5 May 2023: Ukrainian President Zelensky urges that the Russian invasion be considered the primary offence in the Ukraine war and calls for a new tribunal on aggression in a surprise visit to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

3 May 2023: The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture has found prisons in Madagascar to be gravely overcrowded, some beyond 1000%, stating that the overcrowding constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions of detention contrary to international law standards.

2 May 2023: The Namibian Nama and Ovaherero indigenous communities have demanded to participate in re-negotiations with Germany over an agreement recognizing the 1904-1908 genocide of the communities, after UN experts confirmed their participation rights were violated by both governments.

1 May 2023: The United Nations working group on arbitrary detention has called for the release of tortured Guantánamo detainee Abu Zubaydah, and warned that the severe deprivations of liberty at the camp may constitute crimes against humanity.

25 April 2023: The International Criminal Court and Europol have agreed to establish a framework for enhancing co-operation and the exchange of information, knowledge, experience and expertise between them.

24 April 2023: A Croatian court will begin hearing the retrial of former Serb policeman Milenko Maric for allegedly committing war crimes against civilians in Baranja in 1991, after his previous acquittal was overturned for procedural violations.

21 April 2023: The Eurojust-supported joint investigation team investigating alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine has agreed to also investigate alleged crimes of genocide committed there.

18 April 2023: Authorities in Switzerland have indicted Ousman Sonko, the ex-Minister of Interior of Gambia, for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the rule of former dictator Yahya Jammeh, under universal jurisdiction.