Last month, the first woman ever was convicted of genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, Rwanda’s former minister for family and women’s affairs, guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape, for her role in planning and ordering others to carry out these crimes during the country’s 1994 genocide.

 Richard Dicker, Director of International Justice , argues that any political deal allowing Muammar Gaddafi to avoid prosecution before the ICC would compromise peace and deny the victims of crimes against humanity the possibility of redress.

Human Rights Watch attended the opening of the trial of Thomas Kwoyelo, a former combatant of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), in Gulu, northern Uganda, on July 11, 2011, before the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the Ugandan High Court.

Strasbourg has ruled that Britain failed to investigate civilian killings in Iraq. This must never happen again.

A European Court of Human Rights ruling on July 7, 2011, in a case involving the killings of Iraqi civilians by UK soldiers, is a landmark judgment in the universal application of human rights.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), by issuing an arrest warrant for Muammar Gaddafi, signaled that the law can reach even those long thought to be immune to accountability. The ICC judges granted warrants on June 27, 2011, for Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, his son Seif al-Islam, and Libya’s intelligence chief, Abdullah Sanussi. They are wanted on charges of crimes against humanity for their roles in attacks on civilians, including peaceful demonstrators, in Tripoli, Benghazi, Misrata, and other Libyan cities and towns.