A Thai court has sentenced Australian man Antonio Bagnato to death for the murder and kidnapping of a Hells Angels member.
AAP/Facebook
The Australian government must distinguish between horrific crime and a barbaric sentence.
Jason Reed/Reuters
Japan claims that the placement of “comfort girl” statues outside the Japanese legations in South Korea violates international law, but state practice and jurisprudence suggests otherwise.
Slipping backwards.
EPA/Mike Brown
Torture is the ultimate abuse of state power over the individual. If the US returns to using it, all hell could break loose.
Keeping it clean.
EPA/Dennis Brack
The UK has yet to properly grapple with its past complicity in prisoner abuses and torture.
The Libyan rebel leader Abdel Hakim Belhaj who has won the right to sue former British foreign secretary Jack Straw.
Mohamed Messara/EPA
Three key rulings by the UK Supreme Court and their legal implications.
A photo from Sea Shepherd allegedly shows a Japanese whaling vessel with a dead minke whale on board.
EPA/GLENN LOCKITCH / SEA SHEPHERD HANDOUT
Japan is once again allegedly killing whales in Antarctica. But after taking Japan to international court in 2014, there’s not much Australia can do.
The Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, remembers the 1994 genocide.
EPA
Plenty of African states bristle at the rest of the world’s eagerness to prosecute crimes committed on the continent. Some are finding other ways to do it.
Lisa Norwood via flickr
In December 1966, international law created several degrees of separation between different sets of human rights. Today, we must fix this.
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Britain has a number of bilateral treaties with Eastern European countries that will remain after Brexit.
Iraqi officials at the site of a suspected mass grave south of Mosul in November 2016.
STR/EPA
When mass graves are disturbed, it makes it harder to find out the truth about what happened.
Ms Jane Campbell / Shutterstock.com
You might be familiar with Article 50, but Article 127 of another European treaty could be as important when it comes to Brexit.
Previously presumed dead, Australian citizen Neil Prakash was arrested at the Turkish border in late November.
ABC News
The extradition process for Australian citizen Neil Prakash could be prolonged, as Turkey and other countries may want to interrogate him or seek his extradition.
Trump’s access to nuclear weapons poses a new and unknown threat to global peace and security.
AAP Image/NEWZULU/ZACH SIMEONE
Donald Trump will soon have command of thousands of nuclear weapons. This presents a new and unknown threat to global security - and an urgent incentive for all states to ban nuclear weapons.
Omar al-Bashir (centre, blue suit) at the infamous 2015 African Union summit in Johannesburg.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
Arguably Africa’s most powerful diplomatic player, South Africa is now backing out of the world’s most important mechanism for bringing war criminals to justice.
Naming and shaming exacerbates criminal behaviour due to the stigma attached with such a label.
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Changes that would widen the gulf between Australian practice and international standards should be avoided at all costs.
Demands for justice for the victims of Flight MH17, including war crimes prosecutions for those responsible, persist.
AAP/Lloyd Jones
The Lockerbie trial illustrates several challenges that are likely to arise again in the pursuit of justice for those killed on Flight MH17.
Millions were spent supporting an extradition process to make the prosecution of Dragan Vasiljković somebody else’s problem.
AAP/Paul Miller
Historically, Australia’s broader policy approach to war crimes and war criminals has lacked a clear and coherent foundation.
Under proposed changes, the war crime of murder would not apply to collateral civilian deaths resulting from an otherwise lawful attack.
EPA/Zouhir Al Shimale
Under proposed changes, the war crime offence of murder, in a non-international armed conflict, would not apply to collateral civilian deaths resulting from an otherwise lawful attack.
The scene after an Islamic State bombing in Damascus.
EPA/Youssef Badawi
Even if the war in Syria is somehow brought to a close, prosecuting IS members for the crimes they’ve committed won’t be easy.
Kuwait, 1991. If Saddam Hussein did this today the ICC may consider him an environmental criminal.
Everett Historical / shutterstock
But criminal sanctions alone aren’t enough. We also have to make individuals and firms financially liable for their actions.