UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan named a five-member panel on Thursday that was created to investigate possible war crimes occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. The panel was created through the Security Council as per a US-drafted resolution approved last month. The panel is led by Italian judge Antonio Cassese and includes: Egyptian Mohammed Fayek, secretary-general of the Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR); Diego Garcia-Sayan, former Peruvian foreign minister and justice minister; Pakistani Hani Jilani, Annan's special representative on human rights defenders; and Ghanaian Therese Striggner Scott, chairwoman of the Ghana Law Reform Commission.

A panel meeting is slated for later this week to draft a timetable for their work. Reuters has more. See continuing coverage of the Darfur crisis on JURIST's Paper Chase here.