By Rumbidzai Maweni Research Associate, Citizens for Global Solutions On Monday, July 14th 2008, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir became the first national leader to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, filed exactly ten charges against the Sudanese leader, three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity,...

(This is the seventh in a series of papers analyzing the global and foreign policy views of the “presumptive presidential nominees” and how each candidate may govern as our nation’s next president.) Since fighting erupted in Darfur in 2003, an estimated 450,000 people have died due to violence or disease, and 2.5 million have been displaced to Chad and neighboring areas. Although the Bus...

WASHINGTON, DC -- The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is expected to seek an arrest warrant Monday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity in the orchestration of a campaign of violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the nation's Darfur region during the past five years. The...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the Genocide Accountability Act by voice vote.  This move comes on the heels of Senate passage and now goes to President Bush for his approval before it becomes law. Statement of Citizens for Global Solutions Interim Director Raj Purohit: "Citizens for Global Solutions welcomes the...

The Chautauqua Declaration Last week an unprecedented gathering of international war crimes prosecutors met with little fanfare (and even less media coverage) in Chautauqua, New York. These nine men sounded an international clarion call to end impunity by perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in drafting, signing and releasing...

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 31 (IPS) - Hopes for restoration of peace in the Sudanese region of Darfur appear to remain as distant as ever, although international efforts to resolve the four-year-long bloody conflict have recently intensified and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is now getting personally involved. But as Ban prepares to embark on his first-ever trip to Sudan next week from Sep. 3-6, th...

Darfur action Following Dan Simpson's column "Dealing With Darfur" (July 25) very encouraging news was announced by the United Nations on July 31. The council agreed to deploy a new hybrid U.N.-African Union force of 26,000 peacekeepers/police, which will be allowed to "defend civilians and aid workers from any attack" and "use necessary action" in an effort to...

IntroductionThe Nuremburg Trials held perpetrators of genocide accountable for crimes committed during the Holocaust. Nuremburg remains a testament to an international code of justice and a beacon for international law to this day. The United States has ratified the statute for the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, proving a long-held U.S. commitment to uphold...

Janjaweed Using Rape as 'Integral' Weapon in Darfur, Aid Group Says Nora Boustany The Washington Post July 3, 2007 A new report on the crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan has identified rape as a systematic weapon of ethnic cleansing being used by government-backed Janjaweed militiamen, and said Sudanese laws discriminate against female victims, who face harassment and intimidat...

Darfur conflict heralds era of wars triggered by climate change, UN report warns Julian Borger The Guardian June 23, 2007 The conflict in Darfur has been driven by climate change and environmental degradation, which threaten to trigger a succession of new wars across Africa unless more is done to contain the damage, according to a UN report published yesterday. "Darfur ... holds grim lesso...