Last month, Iraqi Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim disclosed that a man convicted [JURIST report] of the 2004 kidnapping and murder of British aid worker Margaret Hassan [JURIST news archive] escaped custody [JURIST report] in September 2009. Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi escaped from Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive], where he was serving a life sentence. Authorities have postponed a hearing of his appeal and may try al-Rawi in absentia if he is not found. In August, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [official website] called for Iraq's political leaders to adopt a "higher sense of urgency" [JURIST report] to form a new government, warning that further delays could create more instability. The country has been in disagreement over who has the authority to build the new government since holding elections [JURIST report] earlier this year. The Iraqi Supreme Court ratified the final results [JURIST report] of the country's March parliamentary elections, officially confirming a narrow victory for the secular Iraqiya alliance, led by Iyad Allawi.

The State of Israel is the national state of the Jewish People and is a democratic state in which all its citizens—Jewish and non-Jewish— enjoy fully equal rights. The combination of these two lofty values expresses the foundation of our national life and anyone who would like to join us needs to recognize this. …Where else in the Middle East can Jews and non-Jews live safely with fully equal rights other than in Israel? Democracy and equal civil rights for all citizens, Jews and Arabs, are the soul of Israel.

The Cabinet rejected a proposal [JURIST report] to include language declaring allegiance to a "Jewish, Zionist and democratic" Israel in 2009. Last week, an Israeli district court rejected [JURIST report] Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire's request to gain entry into the country. The ban stems from Maguire's presence on the MV Rachel Corrie when it attempted to deliver aid supplies to the blockaded Gaza Strip [BBC backgrounder] in June. One week earlier, Israeli forces raided [JURIST news archive] several Turkish ships, leaving nine civilians dead. In August, the Turkish Foreign Ministry [official website] announced that it will conduct an investigation [JURIST report] into the incident. The announcement came days after Netanyahu testified [JURIST report] before a civilian commission that Israel did not violate international law. A senior Israeli official announced in July that his government would not cooperate [JURIST report] with an investigation into the incident conducted by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website], but will comply with a separate UN investigation created under the authority of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon [official website]. Earlier in July, an Israeli military probe found that the raid lacked sufficient intelligence and planning [JURIST report], but also concluded that no punishments were necessary.

[T]he Tribunal is not an administrative body. It is a court of law, and as such it will always be prone to a certain degree of unforeseeability, which is a natural element in most kinds of judicial work, and particularly in trials as complicated as those at the Tribunal. The Tribunal cannot be wound up as though it were a bakery producing bread. It can only be wound up properly with appropriate sensitivity to the judicial character of its work.

In September, the ICTY announced that the genocide trial of Radovan Karadzic [case materials; JURIST news archive] could take another four years [JURIST report] to complete. Also in September, members of the Cambodian government and the UN met with officials for 30 countries [JURIST report] seeking additional funding for the ECCC as the tribunal faced budget shortfalls of $7.4 million and $39 million for 2010 and 2011. That same week, current and former international prosecutors signed the fourth Chautauqua Declaration [text, PDF] praising recent advances in international law and urging countries to continue supporting the international courts [JURIST report] in order to maintain the spirit of the Nuremburg Principles [text]. The prosecutors, who have worked with the ICTY, the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) [official websites], the ICTR and the ECCC, as well as the International Military Tribunals, called for continued support and funding of the tribunals as they continue working to maintain the international rule of law. They urged countries to fulfill their obligations under international law by investigating and prosecuting, or transferring to the appropriate court, suspects who violate international criminal law, including sitting heads of state.

[JURIST] Bolivian President Evo Morales [official profile, in Spanish; BBC profile] signed a controversial bill [text, PDF; in Spanish] into law Friday that permits the government to punish media outlets for publishing racist content. Under the new law, the government can fine or even revoke [Reuters report] the media licenses of newspapers and other media that publish content it deems to be discriminatory, particularly toward the nation's majority Indian population. The law was widely protested [JURIST report] by Bolivian media outlets earlier this week, which responded [Los Tiempos report, in Spanish] to Morales' endorsement of the speech constraints by printing the message "There is no democracy without freedom of expression" on their front pages. The country's largest journalists union has refused to participate [Los Tiempos report, in Spanish] in the drafting of the regulations for the new law.

The legislation comes as part of a wider campaign by Morales to advance the interests of the majority indigenous community, which has been a theme of his presidency [JURIST report]. In June, the Bolivian National Congress approved [JURIST report] legislation [text, PDF; in Spanish] that will create an independent justice system for indigenous communities. The Law of Judicial Authority is attempting to create a system of "communal justice" that would expedite the settlement of disputes and end the colonization of justice, according to supporters. Opponents in congress criticized the bill as a way in which to get more people from the indigenous population on the courts, regardless of merit. In March 2009, Morales began redistributing land to indigenous farmers under power given to him by the country's new constitution [text, in Spanish]. Bolivia's new constitution went into effect [JURIST report] in February 2009, after being approved [JURIST report] by national referendum the previous month with a 59 percent majority. It is intended to place more power in the hands of the country's indigenous, remove traditional colonial elites from power and challenge US influence. It also creates seats in Congress for minority indigenous groups.