For more than 60 years, successive regimes have killed or starved millions, and the world has done little in response. No one should labor under the misperception that the regime can be influenced by negotiation, and reformed in some traditional sense. Only coordinated outside pressure has a chance to make an impact. Recording, exposing, condemning and calling for accountability for serious abuses may lead some in the regime to realize that there are potential costs to their behavior.

North Korea has faced ongoing international criticism for human rights violations. In November the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Marzuki Darusman expressed concern over the lack of development in human rights in the nation, despite having called [JURIST reports] on new leader Kim Jong-un last January to improve the situation. In June the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) [advocacy website] reported that North Korea's caste system [JURIST report] leads to abuses and human rights violations in the country. Darusman also criticized [JURIST report] the nation's human rights record in November 2011, focusing on the treatment of prisoners.

The impeachment Bandaranayake has recently been a source of great controversy. Earlier this month a UN independent expert expressed concern [JURIST report] about the increasing threats and attacks against judges and lawyers who fight for the independence of the judiciary in Sri Lanka. Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, [official profile] called for the independence of the judiciary and criticized the parliament for exercising control over judicial matters, which violates the principle of separation of powers, due process and international standards. In mid-December Bandaranayake appealed [JURIST report] her conviction of misconduct, arguing that she was not given adequate opportunity to present her defense. She was found guilty [JURIST report] of three out of five charges of misconduct by the parliamentary committee earlier that month. More than 300 of Sri Lanka's judges had met in the capital Colombo to call for impartiality [JURIST report] in the impeachment proceedings. In November, Knaul urged [JURIST report] Sri Lanka to take appropriate measures to protect the country's judiciary from threats, intimidation and physical attacks. Earlier that month hundreds of Sri Lankan lawyers and citizens protested [JURIST report] on the street in Colombo calling the government to halt to the impeachment proceedings.

The 1995 mass executions at Srebrenica have been characterized as the most horrific massacre since post-war Europe, as more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys were murdered at the hands of Bosnian Serb military forces under General Ratko Mladic. In December, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sentenced [JURIST report] a former Bosnian Serb army commander of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the massacre. BiH in particular has been continuously prosecuting, convicting and sentencing those responsible for the killings, and even those who left the country are being brought back to face charges. In December the BiH war crimes court acquitted two Serbian defendants [JURIST report] of involvement in the massacre. In June the court sentenced [JURIST report] four former Bosnian Serb soldiers for their involvement in the massacre. In May US resident Dejan Radojkovic was deported [JURIST report] to BiH to stand trial before the country's court for his actions as a police commander in Srebrenica during the 1995 massacre. He was the second to be deported after his commanding officer, Nedjo Ikonic, was deported in 2010 [JURIST report]. A day earlier, the war crimes court convicted [JURIST report] Dusko Jevic and Mendeljev Djuric for taking part in the killing of 1,000 Muslim men during the massacre after it found that the two former Bosnian Serb police officers were guilty of aiding and abetting genocide.

In ruling that Illinois must allow individuals to carry ready-to-use firearms in public, the 7th Circuit Court's decision goes beyond what the US Supreme Court has held and conflicts with decisions by two other federal appellate courts. Based on those decisions, it is appropriate to ask the full 7th Circuit to review this case and consider adopting an approach that is consistent with the other appellate courts that have addressed these issues after the US Supreme Court's landmark Heller and McDonald decisions.

Illinois lawmakers, particularly those in Chicago, have struggled to limit firearm possession and advance gun control [JURIST news archive] initiatives in the city without violating the Constitution. In June the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois [official website] struck down [JURIST report] a portion of the Chicago Firearms Ordinance [text, PDF] that prevents firearm purchase by individuals who have "been convicted by a court in any jurisdiction of ... unlawful use of a weapon that is a firearm" because such a standard is unconstitutionally vague. The Ordinance was unanimously approved [JURIST report] by the Chicago City Council in July 2010, and imposes strict regulations on firearm possession. In particular, residents who possess firearms are required to keep them inside their homes, and are not permitted to take their guns into the yard, garage or porch of the home. The legislation was enacted four days after the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago [JURIST report] that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is applicable to the states as well as the federal government. The decision effectively struck down Chicago's former handgun ban, as it prohibited citizens from keeping handguns in their homes under any circumstances.

Germany recently reopened investigations [JURIST report] and began prosecuting Nazis for war crimes. In November German prosecutors charged [JURIST report] 91-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS [USHMM backgrounder] Siert Bruins with the murder of a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944. The Dortmund prosecutor accused Bruins of executing captured Dutch Nazi-opposition fighter Aldert Klaas Dijkema in September 1944 outside the town of Appingedam. Bruins and an accomplice, who since died, were accused of taking Dijkema, a prisoner at the time, to an isolated location and then shooting him four times. The suspects reported at the time that Dijkema had been trying to escape when they shot him. Bruins already served time in the 1980s for the murders of two Dutch Jews during the war. In March John Demjanjuk, a former guard at a Nazi death camp who had been convicted in Germany of helping to murder thousands during the Holocaust, died while awaiting his appeal [JURIST reports].