News releases

Following the announcement that the former President of the United States of America was going to come to Geneva on 12 February 2011 for personal reasons, TRIAL has been requested on several occasions to participate in the proceedings against George W. Bush. The organisation believes that it is likely that international crimes (namely torture, enforced disappearanc...

TRIAL has recently submitted two individual communications to the United Nations Human Rights Committee regarding the enforced disappearance and torture of Jit Man Basnet in Nepal in February 2004 and regarding the arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment and execution of Ermin Kadiric in Bosnia-Herzegovina July 1992. Jit Man Basnet is a journalist and a lawyer in Kathmandu...

Geneva/Bern, 30 December 2010 As of January 1, 2011, Switzerland will enjoy a new law enabeling it to better participate in the prosecution of gencoide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Federal authorities must however provide the necessary means to actively participate in the growing struggle against impunity. The full press release is not available in E...

Enforced disappearances constitute not only grave violations of human rights but are also international crimes. The arrest, the detention or the abduction of a person, when not acknowledged by the State, terribly affects the relatives who remain in the dark about the fate of their loved one and fear the worst. On 23 December 2010, a new step has been taken in the stru...

Geneva, 15 December 2010. In 2007, the Federal Court, Switzerland's highest judicial authority, rejected a claim from a Tunisian victim of torture, to bring an action for damages against Tunisia and a former minister of the Interior. The European Court of Human Rights has just made it clear it might not agree. In April 1992, while living in Italy, Mr. Abdennacer Na...

10 December 2010 - On the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, TRIAL continues its fight against impunity around the globe and is submitting three new cases from Nepal, Algeria and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Thousands of families of vic...

(Sarajevo/Geneva, 23 November 2010) – The UN Committee against Torture (CAT) issued recommendations to BiH for resolving the problems related to missing persons and victims of rape or other forms of sexual violence during the war. These recommendations were formulated after the organization TRIAL, along with 11 local associations from all of BiH, filed a 80-page-long...

The Advocacy Center – TRIAL (ACT) submitted two communications to the Human Rights Committee against Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) concerning the enforced disappearances of Mr. Mensud Rizvanović and Mr. Husein Hamulić occurred in July 1992. The Rizvanović and Hamulić cases On 20 July 1992 Mr. Mensud Rizvanović was arbitrarily deprived of his liberty in Rizvanovići (B...

On the eve of the United Nations Human Rights Council review of Libya’s human rights record, TRIAL (Track Impunity Always) submitted today two new cases of enforced disappearances against Libya to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The organization calls upon the Human Rights Council to put accountability of human rights offenders on the table. The cases of I...

On 27 October 2010, TRIAL (Swiss association against impunity) has submitted an individual communication to the United Nations Human Rights Committee regarding the enforced disappearance of Chakra Bahadur Katwal in 2001. On 9 December 2001, Mr. Katwal received a letter at his school asking him to go to the district’s education office in the Okhaldhunga village in o...

Sarajevo/Geneva, 8 September 2010 In November 2006 the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) adopted its concluding observations concerning the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the status of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Among other subjects, the Committee expressed its concern for the fact that the fate and w...