International Commission of Jurists
Oustanding debts to settle: the economics accomplices of the dictatorship in Argentina

Oustanding debts to settle: the economics accomplices of the dictatorship in Argentina

Apr 7, 2014 | Events, News

This is the English title of a book by Horacio Verbitsky and Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, with contributions from more than twenty specialists, which reveals complicity between private actors and the dictatorship in Argentina.

The book will be launched on 10 April at 4 pm (16.00)in the Library Events Room (B-135) at the Palais des Nations, Building B, 1st floor, in Geneva.

Carlos Lopez, ICJ Senior Legal Adviser on Business and Human Rights will be among the discussants at the event. He contributed one chapter of the book, on corporate complicity.

The cases of business collaboration discussed in the book range from the role of private companies, to the financing role of the banks and the mass media.

The book also discusses economic illegal appropriation of business, the role of lawyers, business organizations, economic think tanks, the Catholic hierarchy, and scholars.

UNOG-launch book corporate complicity in Argentina-news-events-2014 (full invitation in pdf or you can also enlarge the picture)

Symposium for judges in Zimbabwe

Symposium for judges in Zimbabwe

Apr 4, 2014 | News

The Judicial Service Commission of Zimbabwe and the ICJ are holding a first-term symposium for Judges from Zimbabwe at Elephant Hills, Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe on 4-5 April 2014.

UN: the right to challenge the lawfulness of detention before a court

UN: the right to challenge the lawfulness of detention before a court

Apr 3, 2014 | Advocacy, Legal submissions

The ICJ today made a further submission to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

The ICJ submission addressed a number of issues for a draft set of “Basic Principles and Guidelines” on the right of anyone deprived of liberty to challenge the lawfulness of his or her detention, and the right of victims of arbitrary or unlawful detention to an effective remedy.

The document supplements an earlier submission by ICJ, delivered in November 2013, and responds to a number of questions raised by members of the Working Group when the ICJ appeared before it in its November session. The new submission addresses the following issues:

  • The ability of persons other than the detained individual and his or her lawyer to initiate proceedings challenging the detention.
  • Entitlement of a detained person to disclosure by the government of information relevant to their detention, in the context of challenging the lawfulness of the detention.
  • The right of the detained individual physically to appear before the court.
  • The scope of the obligation to provide compensation to victims of arbitrary or otherwise unlawful detention, apart from particular treaty provisions.
  • Whether, in terms of the right to remedy and challenge, any distinction is to be drawn between the criminal justice system and other forms of detention such as detention of migrants, detention on psychiatric and various existing administrative regimes.
  • Military courts and the right to challenge the lawfulness of detention.
  • Whether exceptions to the right to challenge lawfulness of detention before a court exist, under customary international law.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which will next meet in Geneva 22 April to 1 May 2014, was requested  by the Human Rights Council to prepare the draft “Principles and Guidelines” before the end of 2015. The Working Group is presently developing a first draft. A stakeholder consultation on the draft is contemplated for September 2014.

The new supplemental submission may be downloaded in PDF here: ICJ-Advocacy-WGADhabeas-2ndSubmission-03042014

The earlier submission may be downloaded here.

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