Myanmar religion law restricts conversion and criminalizes adultery

International organizations are outraged over proposed legislation being negotiated in the Myanmar Parliament which would require individuals to obtain government approval before converting to, or adopting, a new religion. Myanmar (Burma) is a primarily Theravada Buddhist nation of 54 million people with a generally poor, but improving, human rights record. President Obama has visited Myanmar … Read more

Critical Analysis: Will the Crimes Against Humanity perpetrated in North Korea be prosecuted in the ICC?

October 28, 2014 Speaking before the UN General Assembly on Oct. 28, 2014, Marzuki Darusman, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) encouraged action to stem the ongoing human rights abuses in the country.  Specifically, Mr. Darusman encouraged submitting the Commission of Inquiry’s report to … Read more

Critical Analysis: Proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty

Governmental leaders began meeting the week of March 18, 2013, to once again discuss the possibility of a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (Arms Treaty) that would regulate the $60 billion global arms trade.  The desire to create regulations governing the global trade of conventional arms arose in 2006.  The General Assembly of the United Nations … Read more

Kudos to Amnesty Int’l for Holding Non-State Actors to Task

The Taliban

I was pleased to see an article in which Amnesty International calls for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate crimes by the Taliban in Afghanistan. I have long felt that non-state actor groups that wage military style campaigns that intentionally target civilians get more lenient treatment in international criminal law circles.   For example, many … Read more