News releases

TRIAL just won a seventh case against Algeria before the United Nations Human Rights Committee concerning Mr. Djaafar Sahbi's enforced disappearance in 1995.. The NGO welcomes the Committee's decision and hopes that light will be shed on the serious human rights violations that took place during the Algerian internal conflict and that impunity will no longer protect t...

Joint press release of TRIAL and Alkarama Geneva, 27 June 2012 The United Nations Human Rights Committee has recently condemned Libya following the disappearance in 2006 and 2007 of two brothers defended by TRIAL (Swiss association against impunity) and Alkarama. The new Libyan authorities are now required to investigate these facts, to punish the perpetrators o...

For the first time ever, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has been condemned by an international human rights body concerning enforced disappearances committed during the war. The United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) found several violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in regards to 5 Bosnian citizens from the Vogošća muni...

Geneva / Sarajevo, 28 May 2013 - The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CCBH) recently adopted two landmark decisions[1] concerning the applications submitted by families of 71 persons went missing during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The majority of them were supported by TRIAL and its partner organization Izvor. As in other similar cases, the Co...

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the UN Committee against Torture, the guardian of one of the most widely accepted international human rights conventions. In a campaign for universal ratification of the Convention against Torture, several leading human rights organisations now call on the remaining 42 countries to join the treaty and recognize the full competence o...

On 15 and 16 May 2013 the UN Committee against Torture will examine Kenya’s human rights record with regard to torture. In light of this, TRIAL (Swiss association against impunity) submitted an alternative report to the Committee against Torture highlighting the main shortcomings in the implementation by Kenya of the Convention against Torture and expressing concerns...

Survivor of rape during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina relieved as Doboj court today hands out a three-year prison verdict against perpetrator. Despite being a light sentence with no compensation for the victim, TRIAL nevertheless hails this ruling as a major step against impunity of perpetrators of sexual violence during the Bosnian war. The Doboj municipality...

In March 2014, the UN Human Rights Committee will review Nepal’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a core human rights treaty it has been a party to since 1991. As Nepal submitted its state party report almost 14 years later, this will be the first time the Human Rights Committee has the opportunity to scru...

TRIAL today submitted a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee, alleging the unlawful detention, enforced disappearance and torture of Himal Sharma from 2003 to 2005 by state security forces, during the height of the armed conflict in Nepal. Disappeared and tortured On 21 October 2003, Himal Sharma was unlawfully arrested in Kathmandu by members of state sec...

London/Geneva, 12 April 2013 – A Declaration on Preventing Sexual Violence In Conflict was agreed yesterday by the G8 countries, declaring that rape and other serious sexual violence amount to war crimes and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions constitutes an emphatic reminder that states are required to investigate and prosecute conflict-related sexual violence w...

In a case soon to be decided by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, TRIAL represents the families of thirteen residents of Prijedor municipality who were forcibly disappeared in 1992 during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Early 1992, during the first months of the war ravaging the former Yugoslavia: thirteen men are abducted from their famili...

On behalf of the Swiss Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CSCPI), TRIAL handed over a document setting out its position on the ratification and national implementation of the Convention against Enforced Disappearances to the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). After many calls, including the launch of a public petition signed by over 900...