International Commission of Jurists
ICJ’s and AI’s intervention in the case Abu Zubaydah v. Lithuania

ICJ’s and AI’s intervention in the case Abu Zubaydah v. Lithuania

Apr 23, 2013 | Advocacy, Cases, Legal submissions

GuantanamoThe ICJ and Amnesty International presented a third party intervention in the case Abu Zubaydah v. Lithuania before the European Court of Human Rights.

In the third party intervention, the ICJ and AI outlined developments on the knowledge imputable to Contracting Parties at relevant times; on the obligations attached to principle of non-refoulement; on the duty to investigate credible allegations of human rights violations and other procedural obligations; and on the human rights violations that detainees previously held in the USA’s secret detention and rendition programmes are currently enduring.

Abu_Zubaydah_v_Lithuania-ICJAIJointSubmission-ECtHR-final (download the third party intervention)

 

ICJ condemns Taiwan’s imposition of the death penalty

ICJ condemns Taiwan’s imposition of the death penalty

Apr 20, 2013 | Advocacy, News, Non-legal submissions

The ICJ today condemned the execution by the Government of Taiwan of six prisoners, convicted on charges of murder, on 19 April 2013. It follows the earlier execution of six convicted persons in December 2012.

Twenty-one executions have been carried out in Taiwan since April 2010, shattering a de facto moratorium of the death penalty that had been respected by the Government since December 2005.

“The Government of Taiwan’s execution of 12 people in the last six months constitutes a serious and unacceptable assault on the right to life and human dignity”, said Alex Conte, Director of the ICJ International Law & Protection Programmes. “These executions also place Taiwan at odds with the international community, which has adopted with increasingly large majorities since December 2007 the UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions”, Conte added.

This new round of executions are especially lamentable in light of the encouraging step recently taken by the country to invite an international group of experts to review the measures adopted by the Government to promote and protect human rights. The recommendations to the Government of Taiwan, formulated by those experts, and welcomed by the ICJ and other rights groups, included intensifying efforts towards the  abolition of capital punishment and the recommendation that Taiwan “as a first and decisive step, immediately introduces a moratorium on executions in accordance with the respective resolutions of the UN General Assembly”.

The ICJ believes that the use of the death penalty constitutes a violation of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

ICJ and other rights groups encourage Taiwan on domestic implementation of human rights (see ICJ and other rights groups’ statement on Taiwan’s human rights review process)

Italy: Presidential pardon for rendition a blow to the rule of law, says ICJ

Italy: Presidential pardon for rendition a blow to the rule of law, says ICJ

Apr 8, 2013 | News

FO/Milan-ClericThe ICJ today expressed its deep concern at the decision of the President of the Republic of Italy to pardon Colonel Joseph L. Romano III, following his conviction by an Italian court for complicity in the rendition of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar (photo).

“This pardon deals a serious blow to the rule of law and to accountability for CIA renditions and secret detentions, a system which involved torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary and secret detention and other serious crimes under international law,” said Massimo Frigo, Legal Adviser with the ICJ Europe Programme. “Italy stood honourably as the only country where an effective prosecution had been brought against CIA and Italian agents responsible for crimes under international law committed through the CIA rendition programme. This pardon deletes, in a single stroke of the pen, years of relentless efforts of prosecutors, investigators and lawyers to assure accountability for these crimes under international law.”

The ICJ emphasized that the pardon granted by the Italian President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, in his last weeks of office, defeats the efforts of the judiciary to uphold the State’s international law obligations to investigate, prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for gross violations of human rights.

“By nullifying the effects of years of efforts of the Italian judicial system, this pardon seriously undermines Italy’s action against impunity and weakens the very foundations of the rule of law,” Frigo added. “The fact that the President of the Republic justified this action by raising the “peculiarity of the historical moment” of 9/11, thus suggesting that a kind of state of exception for the rule of law could have existed, is an unacceptable position under international law.”

The ICJ deeply regrets this decision of the President of the Republic to use his prerogative of pardon to prevent accountability for such an egregious violation of the rule of law in name of US-Italian diplomatic relations.

The ICJ condemns this pardon and stresses that it must not constitute a precedent and that other convictions in this case must not be nullified by pardons or amnesties. All European countries must uphold their duty fight against impunity for gross violations of human rights.

Any further circumvention of accountability for perpetrators of renditions or other gross human rights violations would only extend the cloak of impunity over the rule of law in Europe.

Contact:

Massimo Frigo, Legal Adviser, ICJ Europe Programme, massimo.frigo(a)icj.org

PR-Italy-RenditionPardon-2013-eng (english version)

PR-Italy-RenditionPardon-2013-ita (italian version)

 

 

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