May 3, 2011 | News
Kasha Jacqueline, a bold and courageous human rights defender, is a co-founder and Executive Director of Freedom and Roam Uganda, an LGBT rights organization.
Kasha has been at the forefront of the civil society campaign against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would impose the death penalty for certain acts of “aggravated homosexuality” and also criminalizes freedom of expression and association concerning promotion of homosexuality.
Uganda-winner of the 211 Matrin Ennals award-web story-2011 (full text, PDF)
Photo by Amnesty France
Feb 9, 2011 | News
The ICJ deplores Malawi’s enactment of a law that criminalizes private consensual sexual activity between women.
Malawi-sexualorientation-news-2011 (full text, PDF)
Jan 27, 2011 | Events
The SADC Lawyers Association (SADC LA) and the ICJ will hold a workshop on Thursday, 27 January 2011 in Johannesburg to deliberate on the SADC Tribunal Review Process.
Africa-workshop-SADC-news-2011 (full text, PDF)
Africa-workshop-SADC-background-2011 (full text, PDF)
Africa-workshop-SADC-programme-2011 (full text, PDF)
Africa-workshop-SADC-recommendations-2011 (full text, PDF)
Jan 26, 2011 | News
The ICJ today deplored the violent killing yesterday of David Kato, a Ugandan human rights defender and LGBT activist.
The ICJ called on the Ugandan authorities to take immediate steps to investigate the crime and to bring those responsible to justice in a fair trial.
Uganda-killingofhrd-news-2011 (full text, PDF)
Sep 23, 2010 | Agendas, Events
The ICJ and the Zimbabwe Advocacy Office (ZAO) is inviting government representatives, civil society and human rights experts to a dialogue on the growing phenomenon of multi-party transitional governments, election-related violence and the protection of human rights in Africa.
The dialogue, focusing on the cases of Kenya and Zimbabwe will take place during the 15th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Kenya-Zimbabwe-rights governments processes-event-2010 (full text in English, PDF)
Kenya-Zimbabwe-rights governments processes-agenda-2010 (full text in English, PDF)
Aug 22, 2010 | Agendas
The scale of human rights violations committed by the armed forces, police and rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo has meant that little attention has been directed to other failings of the justice sector, including the inadequate regulation of companies and the lack of effective remedies for victims of corporate abuse of human rights. Several studies and reports on human rights violations in the DRC have established the extent of corporate involvement or complicity and the State failure to protect people against violations by business corporations. It is necessary to mobilize and strengthen the capacity of legal professionals to use the law to ensure greater accountability by business for their numerous violations and that victims of such violations be afforded effective redress
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in conjunction with Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, the African Association for the Defense of Human Rights and the SADC Lawyers Association will, at the sidelines of the Annual General Meeting of the SADC Lawyers Association,hold on 22nd August 2010 a Lawyers’ Dialogue on “Business Involvement in Human Rights Violations and Victims’ Access to Justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo”.
The Dialogue is intended to bring together experts from the DRC and SADC legal fraternity in a one-day activity to reflect on how human rights law can creatively and effectively be used to bring business entities and players to respect human rights standards and to account for their involvement or complicity in violation thereof. In exploring this key question, the following subsidiary questions shall be answered:
- What is the current status of DRC laws regarding business activities in the country?
- How can business entities and actors be held accountable under international and DRC laws?
- How could international criminal law and regional as well as sub-regional legal frameworks be used to punish and prevent corporate involvement in international crimes in the DRC?
- How effective is the domestic civil liability regime in respect of business involvement in gross human rights abuses?
What are the obstacles facing access to justice for victims of business gross human rights abuse in the DRC, and how can they be overcome?
DRC-dialogue violation justice-agenda-2010 (full text in English, PDF)
DRC-dialogue violation justice-agenda-2010 (full text in French, PDF)
