International Human Rights Law, Humanitarian Law,

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International Human Rights Law, Humanitarian
Law, Crimes Against Humanity

• Understanding and Identifying Violations in the
  Liberian Conflict

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Overlapping Systems of Protection
Human Rights Law -applies in periods of peace as
well as conflict
Humanitarian Law -applies only during armed confl
ict
International Criminal Law (Crimes against
Humanity)
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I. Human Rights Law

• They made us stand for one hour upside down
  against the wall, on our hands with our feet
  against the wall. Then they beat our hands with
  their gun butts whenever we put a foot back on
  the ground. They put a gun in my mouth and they
  said, Eat Charles Taylors biscuit. I was then
  put into a cell and held overnight. The next
  morning, we were made to clean up the area, cut
  the grass and bush, and then released.
• - 26 year old Liberian man

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I. Human Rights Law

• Definition
• - HUMAN RIGHTS are the rights that all people
  have by virtue of being human
  
• - HUMAN RIGHTS are derived from the inherent
  dignity of the human person

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I. Human Rights Law

• History
• - Antiquity
• - Code of Hammurabi
• -Rights of Athenian citizens
• - Medieval
• - Magna Carta (1215)
• - Sir Thomas Aquinas theory of natural rights
  (13th Century)

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I. Human Rights Law

• History
• - Enlightenment
• - English Declaration of the Rights of Man
  (1689)
  
• - U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776)
• - French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
  the Citizen (1789)
  
• - United States Constitution and Bill of Rights
  (1789)

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I. Human Rights Law

• History
• - Early Developments (cont.)
• - International Committee for the Red Cross
  (1863)
  
• - League of Nations
• - International Labor Organization (1919)

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I. Human Rights Law

• History
• - Aftermath of World War II
• - Roosevelts Four Freedoms Speech(January 6,
  1941)
  
• - The Atlantic Charter Between the United States
  and Great Britain (August 14, 1941)
  
• - The Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals
• - Creation of the United Nations (1945)

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I. Human Rights Law

• Sources International Bill of Human Rights
• - Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
• - Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (plus
  Optional Protocols) (1966)
  
• - Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
  Rights (1966)
  

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I. Human Rights Law

• Sources other key human rights instruments
• - International Convention on the Elimination of
  All Forms of Racial Discrimination (acceded to by
  Liberia in 1976)
  
• - Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
  Discrimination Against Women (acceded to in
  1984)
  
• - Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted
  in 1989) Optional Protocol on the involvement
  of children in armed conflict (signed 2004)
  

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I. Human Rights Law

• Sources other key human rights instruments
• - Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel,
  Inhuman or Degrading Punishment (acceded to by
  Liberia in 2004)
  
• - Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
  (acceded to 1964)
  
• - African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples
  Rights (ratified in 1982)
  

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I. Human Rights Law

• Identifying civil and political rights
• - Life Arbitrary and extrajudicial killings
• - Equality government privileges for certain
  tribal groups
  
• - Personal integrity beatings
• - Freedom from slavery forced labor
• - Freedom from arbitrary arrest/detention
  detentions based solely on suspicion or
  association
  

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I. Human Rights Law

• Identifying civil and political rights
• - Freedom of movement and residence checkpoints,
  forced displacements
  
• - Due Process detention without charge or trial,
  no opportunity to present a defense
  
• - Freedom of opinion and expression arrests of
  journalists, confiscation of equipment
  
• - Freedom of association and assembly violent
  suppression of peaceful protests
  

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I. Human Rights Law

• After the President made a speech in Feb. 2002
  saying certain areas in Monrovia were harboring
  rebel collaborators, hundreds of men were
  arrested. Street boys were also being rounded
  up. The SOD police arrived heavily armed in
  landcruiser jeeps. Men in my neighborhood of
  Duala were arrested and taken to the national
  police headquarters. I slept in the ceiling that
  night.
• - 26 year old Liberian man

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I. Human Rights Law

• Identifying economic, social, and cultural
  rights
  
• - Right to safe and healthy working conditions
  no protection from unsafe chemicals on rubber
  plantations
  
• - Right to form trade unions and to strike
  harassment of union organizers
  
• - Right to Social Security breakdown of
  government service infrastructure

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I. Human Rights Law

• Identifying economic, social, and cultural
  rights
  
• - Right to adequate food, clothing and housing
  destruction of homes crops, water contamination
  because of corpses
  
• - Right to education schools closed because of
  fighting
  
• - Right to health care lack of medical care in
  refugee camps

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I. Human Rights Law

• Identifying abuses Liberias TRC Act defines
  human rights violations as
  
• - violations of international human rights
  standards, including but not limited to acts of
  torture, killing, abduction and severe
  ill-treatment
• - violations of international humanitarian law,
  including but not limited to crimes against
  humanity

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I. Human Rights Law

• TRC will pay special attention to
• - gender based violations
• - the issue of child soldiers
• - root causes, circumstances, factors, context,
  motives and perspectives which led to violations

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I. Human Rights Law

• Womens human rights violations
• - abductions
• - sexual violence and slavery
• - forced marriage and child bearing
• - ritual killings
• - forced labor

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I. Human Rights Law

• Childrens human rights violations
• - abductions
• - sexual violence and slavery
• - forced conscriptions
• - forced labor
• - separation from parents, siblings

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I. Human Rights Law

• Government soldiers came and forced me and my
  father to join them. My father refused so they
  cut his throat. They beat me and tied me and
  forced me to join the fighters. First, I carried
  ammunition but then they gave me a gun and said
  that I should join the Small Boys Unit. . . I
  was sometimes beaten for misbehaving. While I was
  fighting, the LURD captured me in Lofa. They tied
  me and cut my foot to mark me in case I ran away.
  I had to fight with the LURD but while I was
  fighting I saw a friend with the soldiers so I
  ran back to the government side. I went to
  Gbarnga and fought in a village behind Gbatala.
  My commander brought captured LURD fighters and
  told me to kill them. I tied them and cut their
  throats or shot them. I killed more than seven
  people. -13 year old Liberian boy

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Actors in the Liberian Conflict

• Government
• Non-state actors
• Civilians

• Victims
• Witnesses
• Perpetrators

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Every day and night the soldiers came to take our
  food, our clothes. They beat. They could come to
  the market and shoot, making people run away and
  then take their goods. I left there yesterday
  because of the beating and looting. I saw one
  woman who had given birth in the morning and was
  raped in the evening. Her baby died. Girls were
  also raped.
• - 35 year old Liberian woman

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Sources
• - traditions and customs of war from ancient
  times
  
• - modern warfare led to creation of the Geneva
  Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols
  of 1977 relating to protection of victims of
  armed conflict

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Definition
• - a set of rules which seek to limit the effects
  of armed conflict on civilians through
  
• - the protection of those who are not, or are no
  longer, taking part in fighting
  
• - civilians, religious/medical military
  personnel, prisoners of war
  
• - restrictions on the means and methods of
  warfare, i.e., weaponry and tactics

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Definitions
• - Combatants
• - have the right to directly participate in
  hostilities
  
• - cannot be prosecuted for their participation
• - are entitled to POW status in case of capture
• - can be directly targeted

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Definitions
• - Civilians
• - are protected against the effect of
  hostilities
  
• - do not have the right to participate in
  hostilities
  
• - lose immunity against attack if they directly
  participate
  
• - can be prosecuted for mere participation in
  hostilities
  

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Basic rules of warfare
• - persons who are not or are no longer taking
  part in hostilities shall be respected,
  protected, and treated humanely
  
• - captured combatants shall be treated humanely
• - parties to an armed conflict must choose means
  of warfare that will not cause superfluous injury
  or unnecessary suffering
  
• - armed forces shall at all times distinguish
  between the civilian population/objects and
  military objectives, so as to spare civilians

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Common Article 3
• - In the case of armed conflict not of an
  international character occurring in the
  territory of one of the High Contracting Parties,
  each Party to the conflict shall be bound to
  apply, as a minimum, the following provisions

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Common Article 3 continued
• - (1) Persons taking no active part in the
  hostilities, including members of armed forces
  who have laid down their arms and those placed '
  hors de combat ' by sickness, wounds, detention,
  or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be
  treated humanely, without any adverse distinction
  founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex,
  birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Common Article 3 continued
• - To this end, the following acts are and shall
  remain prohibited at any time and in any place
  whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned
  persons
• - (a) violence to life and person, in particular
  murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment
  and torture
  
• - (b) taking of hostages

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Common Article 3 continued
• - (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in
  particular humiliating and degrading treatment
  
• - (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying
  out of executions without previous judgment
  pronounced by a regularly constituted court,
  affording all the judicial guarantees which are
  recognized as indispensable by civilized
  peoples.
• - (2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and
  cared for.

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II. Humanitarian Law

• I was captured by the AFL on Dec. 23, 2001. I
  was with me daughter and my sisters daughter.
  My sister had gone to look for food for us. The
  soldiers told me to come with them. I told them
  that I couldnt carry two babies, so they
  threatened to kill one of them. so I picked them
  both up and carried the two babies. I was beaten
  with the back of their guns for not walking fast
  enough. . .
• The AFL was stealing the zinc roofing from the
  buildings and making us carry it over the Sierra
  Leone border to sell it for them. I carried ten
  sheets and when I got to Sierra Leone, I was able
  to escape. Both my baby and my sisters baby
  dies of sickness. I am here as a refugee alone.
• - 35 year old Liberian woman

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Identifying violations Under the Rome Statute of
  the ICC, war crimes are any of the following
  breaches of the Geneva Conventions, perpetrated
  against any persons or property
• - Willful killing
• - Torture or inhuman treatment, including
  biological experiments

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Identifying violations contd
• - Willfully causing great suffering, or serious
  injury to body or health
  
• - Extensive destruction and appropriation of
  property, not justified by military necessity and
  carried out unlawfully and wantonly
  
• - Compelling a prisoner of war or other protected
  person to serve in the forces of a hostile power

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II. Humanitarian Law

• Identifying violations contd
• - Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other
  protected person of the rights of fair and
  regular trial
  
• - Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful
  confinement
  
• - Taking of hostages

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III. Crimes Against Humanity

• The AFL troops rounded everyone up and brought us
  into town. The commander was Col. Stanley. They
  took everything from us money, clothes,
  documents. They beat people and threatened to
  kill them, calling them rebel sympathizers. They
  were opening doors or houses and shooting at
  people in their houses. They were also burning
  houses.
• - 17 year old Liberian boy

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III. Crimes Against Humanity

• Definition any of the following acts when
  committed as part of a widespread or systematic
  attack directed against any civilian population
  
• - Murder
• - Extermination
• - Enslavement
• - Deportation or forcible transfer of population

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III. Crimes Against Humanity

• Definition continued
• - Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of
  physical liberty in violation of fundamental
  rules of international law
  
• - Torture and other inhuman acts of a similar
  character intentionally causing great suffering,
  or serious injury to body or to mental or
  physical health.
• - Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution,
  forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any
  other form of sexual violence of comparable
  gravity

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III. Crimes Against Humanity

• Definition continued
• - Persecution against any identifiable group or
  collectivity on political, racial, national,
  ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, or other
  grounds that are universally recognized as
  impermissible under international law
• - Enforced disappearance of persons
• - The crime of apartheid

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III. Crimes Against Humanity

• Definition Genocide
• - Killing members of the group
• - Causing serious bodily or mental harm to
  members of the group
  
• - Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions
  of life calculated to bring about its physical
  destruction in whole or in part

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III. Crimes Against Humanity

• Definition Genocide
• - Imposing measures intended to prevent births
  within the group
  
• - Forcibly transferring children of the group to
  another group
  

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III. Crimes Against Humanity

• Sources
• - Liberia ratified the Convention on the
  Prevention and Punishment of the crime of
  Genocide in 1950
  
• - Liberia ratified the Rome Statute of the
  International Criminal Court in 2004

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III. Crimes Against Humanity

• In early September 2001 we were attacked by the
  AFL and fled into the bush. A few days later . .
  . we were brought before Commander Zizemaza. He
  pointed at us and said You Gbandi people are
  the brothers and wives of the dissidents. We
  told you to go to Monrovia but you didnt agree.
  Well kill any Gbandi person we see so kill
  them. . . Then thirty or so people, including my
  mother and sister, were tied with rope and put
  inside three houses. They begged, but the
  soldiers slapped them and told them to shut up.
  Then the soldiers lit the houses on fire, and
  stood guard at the door to make sure our people
  didnt escape.
• - 30 year old Liberian man

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Addressing violations

• Addressing violations
• - Truth Reconciliation Commissions
• recommendations for prosecutions
• domestic prosecutions
• - reparations
• - lustration (disqualifying agents of the former
  regime from future participation in civil
  society)
  
• - amnesty (but not for violations of
  international humanitarian law and crimes against
  humanity)
  
• - system reform

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Addressing violations

• - Tribunals Special Courts
• - Charles Taylor has been indicted by the
  Special Court for Sierra Leone
  
• - International Criminal Court
• - ICC has jurisdiction over nationals of states
  that have ratified the ICC statute (Liberia
  ratified Rome Statute in 2004) and any matter
  referred by the UN Security Council
• - Civil Suits for Damages
• - Alien Tort Claims Act
• - Universal Jurisdiction
• - E.g. Pinochet