• Bahrain: Human Rights Body Should Target Repression
    May 20, 2012

    United Nations member states should scrutinize Bahrain’s deplorable human rights record during the country’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council on May 21, 2012. The international community should push Bahrain to adopt specific measures to ensure free expression and peaceful assembly, end torture, free political prisoners, and establish credible accountability mechanisms for continuing abuses.

  • ‘Friends of Syria’: Push to End Indiscriminate Shelling
    Feb 24, 2012

    Governments at the “Friends of Syria” meeting in Tunis on February 24, 2012, should enlist the support of Russia and China to push Syria to stop its indiscriminate shelling of residential neighborhoods in the city of Homs. They should also press Syria to allow delivery of humanitarian aid and permit safe passage for all civilians who wish to leave.

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Peace and Justice

  • Bahrain: Human Rights Body Should Target Repression
    May 20, 2012

    United Nations member states should scrutinize Bahrain’s deplorable human rights record during the country’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council on May 21, 2012. The international community should push Bahrain to adopt specific measures to ensure free expression and peaceful assembly, end torture, free political prisoners, and establish credible accountability mechanisms for continuing abuses.

  • Africa: Fugitives Take Note - Justice Can Be Done
    May 15, 2012

    Liberia's "big man" surely thought he'd enjoy a comfortable retirement when he left power back in 2003. But on April 26 the Special Court for Sierra Leone convicted Charles Taylor for war crimes and crimes against humanity, proving that even the most powerful aren't immune from justice

  • Libya's Human Rights Problem
    May 15, 2012

    Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) warmly accepted the international community's military and political support for dislodging the Qaddafi government, and vowed to build a new state that would respect human rights. But it seems to be veering off course. Not only is it rejecting international human rights monitoring and the ICC's jurisdiction, but more troubling still, it has passed some shockingly bad laws, mimicking Qaddafi laws criminalizing political dissent and granting blanket immunity to any crimes committed in "support" of the revolution.

  • If Charles Taylor Can Be Tried for War Crimes, Why Not Kissinger?
    May 10, 2012

    Should Vladimir Putin be studying the conviction of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president? What about Henry Kissinger? The verdict marked the first time since the post–World War II Nuremberg trials that a former head of state has been convicted by an international tribunal of war crimes and crimes against humanity. What may be of more lasting significance, however, is that Taylor was not convicted for oppressing his own people—though he did that as well—but for his material support to abusive forces in another country. In that respect, the decision speaks not just to tinpot dictators but to leaders of countries who fight proxy wars by knowingly giving client states or rebel allies the means to commit atrocities. 

  • A victory for The Hague
    Apr 26, 2012

    The verdict against former Liberian President Charles Taylor at the Sierra Leone Special Court has been eagerly anticipated by many in Sierra Leone. But, as is often the case with abusive leaders wielding power, bringing Taylor to justice was once considered a less than welcome development in diplomatic circles. More than a few feared at that time that bringing charges against a sitting president in the midst of a conflict would do more harm than good.

  • Charles Taylor: Q&A on The Case of Prosecutor v. Charles Ghankay Taylor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone
    Apr 16, 2012
    The Special Court indicted Taylor on March 7, 2003 on 17 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international law for his role in supporting Sierra Leonean rebel groups during that country’s armed conflict. The Taylor judgment will be a watershed moment for efforts to hold the highest-level leaders to account through a credible judicial process.
  • Misrata Local Council Response to Human Rights Watch
    Apr 11, 2012

    The Misrata Local Council received with great interest the letter from Human Rights Watch to the city’s local council and military council. The letter explicitly accused the revolutionaries of Misrata of perpetrating several violations and crimes that may amount to crimes against humanity. The letter concluded by threatening to hold officials on the city’s local council and military council responsible for these abuses and the failure to stop and prevent them.

  • Joint Letter Regarding the Libya Resolution Amendments Vote at the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council
    Apr 10, 2012

    The undersgned non-governmental organizations want to express their dismay regarding the results of the vote that toook place during the adoption of the resolution on "Assistance to Libya in the field of Human Rights" (A/HRW/19/L39/Rev.1), at the 19th session of the Human Rights Council on 23rd March 2012.

  • ‘Friends of Syria’: Push to End Indiscriminate Shelling
    Feb 24, 2012

    Governments at the “Friends of Syria” meeting in Tunis on February 24, 2012, should enlist the support of Russia and China to push Syria to stop its indiscriminate shelling of residential neighborhoods in the city of Homs. They should also press Syria to allow delivery of humanitarian aid and permit safe passage for all civilians who wish to leave.

  • Hold Yemen Officials Who Sanctioned Civilian Attacks Accountable
    Jan 28, 2012

    During an artillery barrage last Nov. 11, Yemeni security forces killed 13 civilians in the city of Taizz. One of them was a patient at al-Rawdha Hospital, which mortar rounds and tank fire struck seven times as the wounded poured in for emergency care.

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