War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Burkina Faso by All Sides
The 316-page report, “‘None Can Run Away’: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Burkina Faso by All Sides,” documents the devastating impact on civilians of an armed conflict that has received scant global attention. Researchers documented 57 incidents involving Burkinabè military forces and allied militias known as the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDPs), and the Islamist armed group Jama’at Nusrat al‑Islam wa al‑Muslimin (JNIM) since the current military junta seized power in September 2022. Human Rights Watch issued a question and answer document to explain the legal issues involved.
The State Response to Violent Crime on South African Farms
The South African government is failing to adequately protect residents of commercial farming areas from violent crime, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today. Black farm residents are most severely affected by this failure, and black women are most vulnerable of all, Human Rights Watch said.
When, on October 20, 1999, Abdurrahman Wahid became Indonesia's firstdemocratically elected president in more than four decades, he was welcomed at home and abroad as the country's best hope for healing political rifts, building civil society, and revitalizing government.
Human Rights Watch traditionally advocates reparations as part of the remedy for any serious human rights abuse. For example, under traditional human rights law and policy, we expect governments that practice or tolerate racial discrimination to acknowledge and end this human rights violation and compensate the victims. However, the U.N.
Uzbekistan's post-Soviet development, like that in most of the former Soviet Union, has entailed enormous and disproportionate obstacles to women's realization of their human rights. During the past ten years, Uzbekistan's government has attempted to institute some safeguards for women's rights, mainly in the area of social welfare support.
Hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees along Guinea's border were relocated from the embattled border area in early 2001 to camps in the interior of the country. While the organized movement from the border is a welcome and long overdue step, the long-term safety of the refugees is still under threat.
The United Nations Security Council should impose a comprehensive embargo on all military assistance against all warring factions in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch urged today. In this report, Human Rights Watch accused Pakistan, Iran, and Russia of providing military support to Afghan factions with a long record of committing gross abuses of human rights.
The political situation in Irian Jaya (also known as West Papua or Papua), Indonesia_s easternmost province, is fundamentally unsettled. Papua is remote from Jakarta and home to only two million of the country's more than 200 million inhabitants, but what happens in the resource-rich province is likely to have great importance for Indonesia.
In this paper, we call on the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish minimum standards for the collection of evidence in cases of sexual and domestic violence. We also call on WHO to draft a policy paper to support the effective implementation of the minimum standards.
Human immuno-deficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a national disaster for the people of Kenya, children and adults alike. Kenya is estimated to have the ninth-highest prevalence of HIV in the world with about 14 percent of the adult population infected.
Abuse of Domestic Workers with Special Visas in the United States
The special visas granted to foreigners who work as household domestics in the U.S. leave them vulnerable to serious abuse, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today. Thousands of these workers, typically women, enter the United States every year to work for diplomats, officials of international organizations, foreign businesspeople, and U.S. citizens temporarily back in the U.S.
Serbian and Yugoslav Forces in the Kosovo Conflict The two principal military forces in Yugoslavia in 1998 and 1999 were the Yugoslav Army (Vojska Jugoslavije, or VJ) and the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministarstvo Unutrasnjih Poslova, or MUP). The police of the Montenegrin Republic remained loyal to the Montenegrin government and were not active in Kosovo.
Indictees: Slobodan Milosevic, at the time President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; Milan Milutinovic, the President of Serbia; Nikola Sainovic, the Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia; Colonel General Dragoljub Ojdanic, the Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army; and Vlajko Stojiljkovic, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia.
On Tuesday May 8, 2001, the police arrested Prof. Mesfin Woldemariam, the founder and first chairman of Ethiopia's Human Rights Council (EHRCO), and Dr. Berhanu Nega, an academic and human rights activist associated with EHRCO, on claims that they instigated student protests that took place in Addis Ababa University in mid April.
The branch of international law that provides protection to the victims of armed conflict and governs its conduct is called international humanitarian law (or the "laws of war"). International humanitarian law is derived from the customary practices of states and from treaties.
