Companies have been charged with criminal negligence in the context of other chemical spills in the past, the most notable of which are in relation to the 1984 Bhopal chemical spill disaster [BBC backgrounder]. In August, the Indian Supreme Court announced that it will reconsider [JURIST report] a 1996 ruling allowing former employees of US chemical producer Union Carbide accused in relation to the 1984 chemical spill to be charged with negligence instead of culpable homicide. Seven men were convicted in June [JURIST report] on charges of "death by negligence" and sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay USD $2,100. The convictions were the first related to the Bhopal disaster in which nearly 3,800 people were killed when toxic gas was accidentally released in the middle of the night by a chemical plant owned by a Union Carbide subsidiary company. Upwards of 15,000 others later died from exposure to the gas, and 50,000 were left permanently disabled.

In 2009, the FDLR leadership decided to attack civilians in the North and South Kivu provinces [of the DRC] in order to create a massive humanitarian catastrophe; the FDLR then tried to blackmail the international community and to extort concessions of political power, in exchange for ending the atrocities. As a result of this deadly blackmail, victims were killed, raped, and forcibly displaced, and entire villages were razed to the ground.

Last week, UN peacekeepers and DRC forces arrested [JURIST report] rebel group Mai Mai Cheka [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] leader Lieutenant Colonel Sadoke Kokunda Mayele for allegedly leading mass rapes [JURIST news archive], along with the FDLR and other rebel groups, in the DRC in late July and early August. Earlier this month, the UN released a report on war crimes [text, PDF; JURIST report] and human rights abuses in the DRC. The report, originally expected to be released in September [JURIST report], lists 617 of the most serious violations of human rights, including violence against children, genocide and mass rape, committed between 1993 and 2003. Last month, the UN Security Council [official website] issued a statement condemning the recent mass rapes [text; JURIST report] and calling for justice for the victims. Also last month, the UN Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict called for perpetrators of mass rapes, including heads of DRC militias, to face war crimes charges [JURIST report]. In 2008, Mbarushimana was arrested by German border police [JURIST report] as he attempted to travel to Russia on charges that he killed 32 people during the Rwandan genocide. In 2005, the UN asked France to bring genocide charges [JURIST report] against Mbarushimana, who was then in the country under refugee status. Carla Del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda [official website], refused to charge him and said the ICTR did not file an indictment against Mbarushimana because it lacked sufficient evidence against him.

Last month, a Chinese lawmaker said that the National People's Congress [official website, in Chinese] did not consider removing [JURIST report] the death penalty as a punishment for corruption during the consideration of an amendment to the criminal code. Earlier this year, the Supreme People's Court of China [official website, in Chinese] issued new guidelines for limiting capital punishment [JURIST report] in Chinese courts. In August, Capital punishment advocates in Switzerland began collecting signatures in support of a referendum [text, in German; JURIST report] to reinstate the death penalty for those convicted of murder. In March, Taiwanese Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng [official profile] resigned in defense of her position against the death penalty [JURIST report]. Though Taiwan has not executed a criminal since 2005, Wang said she would not sign the execution warrants of any of the 44 prisoners still on death row. Last month, a South Korean high court ruled that the death penalty does not violate the South Korean constitution [JURIST report]. The court's decision could lead to a reinstatement of the death penalty in South Korea, which has held an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment since 1998. Earlier this year, Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia [official profile] announced that he would suspend the death penalty [JURIST report] and commute the sentences of all prisoners currently on death row to 30 years in prison. UN Under-Secretary-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze [official profile] has praised the increase in the number of countries [JURIST report] that have suspended or abolished the death penalty. Speaking at the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty [FIDH backgrounder] in Geneva last month, Ordzhonikidze expressed hope that countries that have not abolished the death penalty would adopt the 2007 UN Resolution 62/149 [text], placing a moratorium on the use of capital punishment.

Serbia has undertaken an ongoing effort to apprehend those responsible for the atrocities that occurred in the region over the last two decades. Last month, the War Crimes Chamber sentenced [press release, PDF; JURIST report] former paramilitary officer Zeljko Djukic [JURIST news archive] to 20 years in prison for his involvement in the deaths of 14 civilians in March 1999 during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. In August, Croatian authorities extradited Sretko Kalinic to Serbia for his alleged connection with the 2003 assassination [JURIST reports] of former Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic [BBC obituary; memorial website, in Serbian]. In July, an extradition hearing [JURIST report] for former Bosnian president Ejup Ganic began in London to determine whether the former leader should be forced to face trial in Serbia for alleged war crimes. In April, Swedish police arrested a Serbian man [JURIST report] suspected of committing war crimes in the Kosovo village of Cuska during the war. In March, a spokesperson for Serbia's Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor announced the arrest of nine individuals [JURIST report] suspected of being members of the Serbian paramilitary group Sakali and accused of the systematic murders of 41 ethnic Albanians in May 1999. The continuing attempt to find all individuals responsible for the atrocities has created a new political tension [JURIST comment] in the region that will not soon go away.

Even before the controversial law went into effect [JURIST report], there was substantial opposition to the legislation. In March 2007, UN human rights expert Martin Scheinin recommended that the act be amended or repealed [JURIST report]. Also that year, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines urged the government to revisit the act [JURIST report], saying that "many voices are apprehensive" about the anti-terror legislation. In response to criticism, Filipino presidential spokesperson Ignacio Bunye said that the law had already undergone "exhaustive debates" in the legislature [JURIST report]. The government also announced plans for a "massive public information and advocacy campaign" [press release] to accompany implementation and highlight "the existence of terror cells in the region and throughout the world."

The shooting death has been a source of civil unrest in Greece since 2008. Last year, Greek police [official website, in Greek] conducted raids [JURIST report] in Athens in an effort to avoid a repeat of violent protests on the anniversary of the controversial police shooting. More than 6,000 officers spread across the city, arresting more than 150 people for throwing rocks or vandalism. In March 2009, Amnesty International [advocacy website] said that Greek authorities were not doing enough to ensure that the nation's police respect human rights [JURIST report] and urged the government to investigate and address "long-standing problems of policing." Earlier that month, the Greek government said that it would revamp its police force [JURIST report] in light of the riots. The Greek police have been accused of being both ineffective and unnecessarily violent [JURIST op-ed] in their response to the protests.