Go On! Human trafficking conference

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

"Which Way Home" -- a reference to the issue of human trafficking -- is the title of the 20th Annual Northern Illinois Law Review symposium to be held will be held April 14 and 15 in DeKalb.
The program will begin with a showing at 7:30 p.m. on April 14 of the Oscar-nominated film of the same name, about which IntLawGrrls posted a while back. The showing will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Sara McDowell, Senior Immigration Attorney for the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, who represented the children in the film.
During the daylong symposium that will follow on April 15, speakers -- including IntLawGrrl Karen E. Bravo and keynote lecturer M. Cherif Bassiouni -- will identify key areas of human trafficking, use of the U.S. court system to combat trafficking, and future policy regarding trafficking. Symposium Editor Emily M. Martin writes:

Although human trafficking is often thought as a distant, international issue, in reality, it is right outside our backdoor. Chicago and Rockford are both human trafficking hubs and Illinois recently passed the strongest anti-trafficking laws in the country.

Details here.

Libya inquiry appointed

'We have a tough task ahead but I will personally exert all my efforts to come up with an objective report that reflects the reality in Libya and convey the voices of victims of human rights violations.'

So stated Asma Khader (left) in an interview appearing in today's Jordan Times. (photo credit)
Khader, a lawyer, rights activist, and former government minister in Jordan, is among 3 persons whom the U.N. Human Rights Council has selected as a commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Libya. The commission was authorized earlier this month; its work will run in tandem with the investigation of the International Criminal Court undertaken pursuant to a separate resolution of the U.N. Security Council. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts available here.)
Chairing the Libya inquiry will be our colleague M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Chicago's De Paul University and a human rights expert whose U.N. service includes chairing the Security Council's Commission to Investigate War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia.
Completing the three-member panel will be Philippe Kirsch, the Canadian jurist who served as the ICC's 1st President, from 2003 to 2009.
The commission reportedly will begin its work in weeks, with an eye to reporting at the June session of the Human Rights Council.
In the Jordan Times interview, Khader framed her appointment itself as a milestone; in her words, it

'proves that we have eligible experts in the Arab world and that Arab and Jordanian women are qualified to take on such a tough responsibility along with their male peers.'

Inquiring minds want ... Burma

Heard murmurs a while back about the possibility of an international inquiry commission into abuses in Burma, the country also known as Myanmar about which IntLawGrrls frequently have posted.
A statement that Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe (below right), the U.S. Representative to the Human Rights Council, made in Geneva Friday (hat tip) confirms that such a possibility is on the table.
Speaking during a "general debate on situations requiring the Council's attention," Donahoe 1st put the issue in context:

In Burma, the human rights situation remains grim. Under the repressive election laws that stifle meaningful competition and with the continued detention of more than 2,100 political prisoners, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the November 7 elections cannot be inclusive or credible.

(credit for above left photo 1991 Peace Prizewinner Suu Kyi (prior posts)) Donahoe then articulated the aims of the United States regarding the Asian country that's been ruled by a military junta since the late 1980s:

Our overriding objective is to promote a peaceful democratic transition, encourage national reconciliation, and achieve respect for human rights. We urge an end to systematic violations of religious freedom, notably the large-scale repression against the Muslim Rohingya, including refusal to grant citizenship, severe government restrictions on travel, and discrimination in employment and educational opportunities.

Donahoe's comment concluded by referring to a March 2010 report that had recommended "a commission of inquiry with a specific fact finding mandate to address the question of international crimes." Issuing that report was Tomás Ojea Quintana, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. The Council discussed the report at the time it was issued, but took no action. Friday, Donahoe said on behalf of the United States:

Finally, six months ago Special Rapporteur Ojea Quintana invited consideration of a commission of inquiry. The United States believes a properly structured international commission of inquiry that would examine allegations of serious violations of international law would be warranted and appropriate. My government is examining how best to proceed on this initiative.

Worth noting that Ojea Quintana's report made specific reference to the International Criminal Court. Past such commissions have been deployed in places like the former Yugoslavia and Darfur. The resulting Yugoslavia report, issued by a commission chaired by M. Cherif Bassiouni, and the Darfur report, issued by a commission chaired by Antonio Cassese, both led to international criminal cases. No less an authority than Philip G. Alston, the NYU Law Professor who recently concluded a term as Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has recommended such commissions as "an appropriate filtering mechanism" in order to "evaluate whether or not a situation warrants referral to the ICC."

Worth watching what happens with this proposal.

Toward a crimes against humanity treaty

A 2-year project to study the international law regarding crimes against humanity and to draft a multilateral treaty condemning and prohibiting such crimes has been launched by the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. The project's the brainchild of our colleague Leila Nadya Sadat (right), Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law and Director of the Harris Institute, which is named after one of the American prosecutors before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, which tried Nazi war criminals after World War II. As international criminal law aficionados well know, the crime against humanity was one of the 3 crimes set out in the tribunal's London Charter.
Prompting this new move toward a comprehensive international response to crimes against humanity are a number of developments:
► Broad international support for the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which includes crimes against humanity among the offenses within the ICC's jurisdiction;
► Discussions among members of the U.S. Congress of criminal sanctions for crimes against humanity; and
► The considerable body of jurisprudence that various international criminal tribunals have produced in the last decade.
Sadat chairs the project's steering committee. Another member, DePaul University Law Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, has agreed to chair the treaty drafting committee. Also on the steering committee are Hans Corell, former U.N. Under-Secretary for Legal Affairs; Richard Goldstone, former Justice of the South African Constitutional Court and former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the Former Yugoslavia; Juan Méndez, President of the International Center for Transitional Justice and former President of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights; William Schabas, Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway; and Judge Christine Van Den Wyngaert (below left) of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
The steering committee plans to invite leading scholars and jurists to participate in an April 2009 Experts Roundtable, at which research on specific substantive and procedural aspects of the draft convention will be presented. The project will culminate with a global conference on crimes against humanity, at which the draft convention will be discussed.