Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> JURIST - The Paper Chase

Legal News

: JURIST - The Paper Chase

UN, Darfur groups begin work on compensation for war victims

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Representatives from the African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) met with members of the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority (TDRA) and the Darfur Compensation Commission Wednesday to discuss the compensation of Darfur conflict victims. UNAMID's mandate calls for the organization to work with state governments to ensure that victims are compensated. The DCC, which was created as a part of the TDRA under the Darfur Peace Agreement, is charged with hearing claims for compensation arising from the Darfur conflict and making awards based on those claims. UNAMID representatives also attended a meeting of the Darfur Human Rights Forum in North Darfur Wednesday. On Monday, the African Union (AU) called for a hybrid court of Sudanese and foreign judges to hear trials of individuals accused of war crimes in Darfur. Last week, the Appeals Chamber of the ICC reversed a Pre-Trial Chamber decision that denied the application for an arrest warrant on genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The court emphasized that the reversal was procedural in nature and declined to enter a finding of genocidal intent or to order the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue a genocide warrant for al-Bashir, as requested by ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. The case has now been remanded back to the Pre-Trial Chamber to reconsider whether al-Bashir acted with genocidal intent. In a letter to the AU last month, Human Rights Watch urged Sudan to accept ICC war crimes decisions in addition to any combined Sudanese and foreign court. The AU High-Level Panel on Darfur first suggested a hybrid court in an October report to the AU Peace and Security Council.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on February 11, 2010 (boomark / email).