[JURIST] Representatives from the African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) [official website] met with members of the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority (TDRA) and the Darfur Compensation Commission Wednesday to discuss the compensation [press release] of Darfur [JURIST news archive] 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 [text, PDF], 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 [allAfrica.com report] in North Darfur Wednesday.

On Monday, the African Union (AU) [official website] called for a hybrid court [JURIST report] 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 [JURIST report] a Pre-Trial Chamber decision that denied the application for an arrest warrant on genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile; JURIST news archive]. 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 [text] by ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile]. 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 [advocacy website] urged Sudan to accept ICC war crimes decisions [letter text] 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 [text, PDF] to the AU Peace and Security Council.