International justice news

All Justice Info articles since 2015

All articles published on Justice Info (original and republications) are displayed on this page in chronological order. Only our Hirondelle News archives and the AFP news feed (except for dispatches edited by us) are excluded from this list.

In Colombia, an Awá indigenous leader leads a ceremony prior to a hearing before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP)
Colombia's Awá Indians, closer to justice but plagued by violence
16 January 2024 by Andrés Bermúdez Liévano
In 2023 the Special Jurisdiction for Peace issued groundbreaking findings on the crimes committed against Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in Colombia, especially for the Awá. It has notably included the war crimes of destru [...]
Israel / Palestine conflict - Inhabitants of Gaza amid the ruins. Israel-Palestine: the legal battle has started
15 January 2024 by Janet H. Anderson
On January 11 and 12, lawyers for South Africa and Israel presented their arguments before the International Court of Justice. South Africa is alleging that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. For now it [...]
At the Ousman Sonko trial in Switzerland, Gambian plaintiffs pose at the entrance to the court in Bellinzona. Ousman Sonko faces the first witness
12 January 2024 by Mariam Sankanu
The trial of former Gambian Interior minister Ousman Sonko started in Switzerland on January 8. While he denied all allegations against him, the accused had to listen to the first witness, the widow of a soldier he is accused of h [...]
Photo montage from the slideshow illustrating our first Justice Info Correspondents' Meeting in Geneva (November 2023). A window onto Justice Info’s editorial team
11 January 2024 by Justice Info
This was a first. Since the creation of Justice Info in 2015, its correspondents had never been able to get together, but it happened at the end of November. Not all of them were present at the team workshops followed by a public [...]
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Alfred Yekatom, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic, shakes hands with his lawyer Mylène Dimitri during his trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
11 January 2024 by Janet H. Anderson + Margherita Capacci
The controversy on “intermediaries” hits back in the ICC Yekatom trial Alfred Yekatom's defence opened its case early December in The Hague, with a couple of witnesses and a heavy artillery charge against the International Criminal Court prosecutor, accused of having once again used intermediaries an [...]
Portrait of Vincent Lurquin: lawyer specialising in international justice (practising in Belgium), with a particular focus on the crimes committed in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.
9 January 2024 by Gaëlle Ponselet
Vincent Lurquin: "having the humanity to defend someone accused of the worst crimes" For once, we meet Vincent Lurquin outside the courtroom. Without his robe but with the same debonair air that characterises him, the lawyer shares with us his thoughts on the way justice is dispensed in cases relating to the genoc [...]
Gambia - Sonko trial in Switzerland - Photo: Swiss federal court in Bellinzona
8 January 2024 by Julia Crawford
Gambian trial starts in Switzerland for crimes against humanity Ousman Sonko, former interior minister of the Gambia, goes on trial in Switzerland this Monday January 8 for alleged crimes against humanity committed between 2000 and 2016 in his country. This long-awaited trial before Switzerlan [...]
Alvaro Leyva, Colombia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, is enigmatically opposed to certain transitional justice mechanisms in Colombia.
22 December 2023 by Andrés Bermúdez Liévano
Colombia: a minister's enigmatic attacks on transitional justice Why has Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva insisted before the United Nations that Colombia's transitional justice model is headed for failure - while, at the same time, he promotes the special tribunal's acceptance of former paramilit [...]
Rwandan Séraphin Twahirwa sentenced to life imprisonment in Belgium for his involvement in the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.
22 December 2023 by AFP
Belgium: life sentence, notably for rape, for a Rwandan Rwandan Séraphin Twahirwa was given a life sentence by the Brussels Assize Court on Thursday night. The 66-year-old former militiaman, tried under universal jurisdiction, was found guilty of dozens of murders and rapes committed i [...]
Tunisia and justice for Palestine - Photo: Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed holds a Tunisian flag (image of justice behind him).
21 December 2023 by Olfa Belhassine
Gaza: why Tunisia has not referred the situation to the ICC Tunisia is among the few Arab countries to be a member of the International Criminal Court and so holds a valuable card: as a member state it can refer cases to the court. But when five other states referred "the situation in Pale [...]
The former President of Suriname, Desi Bouterse, speaks out following his conviction in an appeal trial.
21 December 2023 by AFP
Ex-president Bouterse definitively sentenced in Suriname The former army strongman, author of two coups d'état and President of Suriname from 2010 to 2020, was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment at final instance on Wednesday 20 December for the 1982 "December murders" of 15 political [...]
At a trial in France, a Rwandan doctor (Sosthene Munyemana) is convicted of taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
20 December 2023 by AFP
Munyemana: a Rwandan doctor sentenced to 24 years in prison in France Sosthène Munyemana is the seventh Rwandan convicted in France under universal jurisdiction for their participation in the 1994 genocide. The exiled doctor was part of a group that "prepared, organised and managed the daily genocid [...]
International Criminal Court (ICC): NGOs and states - Photo: Karim Khan's speech in Cairo.
19 December 2023 by Chantal Meloni
ICC: why NGOs are concerned, not States The 22nd Assembly of the States Parties (ASP) to the International Criminal Court (ICC) just concluded in New York. Two intense weeks of diplomatic work for the States delegates, civil society organizations and other stakeholders. [...]
Sonko trial in Switzerland - Photo : Gambian Interior Minister Ousman Sonko at a conference on cluster munitions in Oslo (Norway) in 2008.
19 December 2023 by Asymmetrical Haircuts
Sonko trial: what can we expect from Swiss justice? In this podcast produced with Asymmetrical Haircuts, two Justice Info correspondents take the floor. Mariam Sankanu, who is covering the post-Truth Commission period in Gambia. And Hannah el Hitami, who in Germany has covered seve [...]
Pro-Palestinian demonstration outside UN headquarters in New York.
18 December 2023 by Thierry Cruvellier
International Criminal Court at the heart of world disorder Member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) met in plenary session from December 4 to 14, as they do annually. Palestine featured in many of the debates on the sidelines of this assembly in New York. It came as the Cou [...]
Total Energies oil project in Uganda - Environmental activists demonstrate in Kampala against EACOP.
15 December 2023 by Grace Matsiko
Total Uganda: 42 families expropriated in a summary trial While the Cop28 negotiations were taking place in the sumptuous halls of Dubai, no less than 42 families from Uganda's oil-rich regions were expropriated from their homes on a Friday afternoon, in an expeditious court hearing. To [...]
Trials behind closed doors - A growing trend in international courts. Photo:
14 December 2023 by Lucy Gaynor
A Silence Epidemic: when real trials are held behind closed doors… The public feeling that the international justice trials take place behind the scenes is nothing new, but the trend has worsened still further at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in particular. Backed up by figures, the auth [...]
Banks and climate justice - Financiers are now in the sights of NGOs seeking to prove their involvement in global warming.
12 December 2023 by Benjamin Bibas
Banks, the new targets of climate action COP28 ended in Dubai on Tuesday December 12 without any credible promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, there are more and more scientific reports describing the humanitarian consequences of climate change. NGOs are [...]
Rwandan Séraphin Twahirwa and his two lawyers, Vincent Lurquin and Juliette Lurquin, at his trial in Belgium. He is on trial for his alleged involvement in the genocide in Rwanda.
11 December 2023 by Gaëlle Ponselet
"What judicial truth without material evidence?" During their closing arguments, Vincent and Juliette Lurquin went out of their way to defend their client Séraphin Twahirwa, a Rwandan charged before the Brussels Assize Court with having participated in the 1994 genocide. To try [...]