The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor announced on Thursday he had requested arrest warrants for two top Afghan Taliban officials for the repression of women. 

Karim Khan said in a statement he asked judges to approve warrants for the group’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhunzada, and the head of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, accusing the men of crimes against humanity for gender-based persecution. 

Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has issued a decree giving himself emergency powers to restore order in the rural Catatumbo region. The decree provides the president with up to 270 days to impose curfews, restrict traffic and take other steps that would normally violate Colombians’ civil rights or require congressional approval.  

As part of the new digital campaign "Reparations Build Justice," the ICTJ team would like to share the keynote address given by ICTJ Director of Programs and Deputy Executive Director Anna Myriam Roccatello at a recent conference on issues related to providing reparations through international criminal courts. In her remarks, Roccatello describes the inextricable link between accountability and reparation as well as ICTJ’s unwavering commitment to victims of massive human rights abuses.

In 1999, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) denied six security officers amnesty for their role in the killings of four men stopped at a roadblock in June 1985. They were never prosecuted and have all since died. 

Afghans who fled their home country after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 are pleading for the United States to reconsider a decision canceling all existing refugee resettlement efforts. 

Reactions continued to pour in against an executive order Trump had signed two days prior, on his first day in office. 

That order called for the suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), which processes refugees for resettlement in the country, starting on January 27. All applications and arrivals through the program have likewise been suspended. 

A court in Istanbul, Turkey ordered the arrest of Umit Ozdag, president of the anti-migrant and far-right Victory Party (VP) for “public incitement to hatred and enmity”.  

According to Ukrainian officials, Russian military drones are swarming the skies over the front-line city of Kherson, carrying out deadly attacks that appear to target civilians. 

On January 22, 2025, ICTJ launched its digital campaign, “Reparations Build Justice”, aiming to raise awareness about reparations and their vital contribution to sustainable peace and justice, particularly in countries grappling with legacies of mass atrocities.

A Libyan general wanted for alleged war crimes and violence against inmates at a prison near Tripoli has been arrested in the northern Italian city of Turin – and then released after an apparent mistake by prosecutors.  

Osama Najim, Libyan general also known as Almasri, was detained on an international arrest warrant after a tipoff from Interpol.  

Against the backdrop of the temporary ceasefire in Gaza, UN Secretary General António Guterres addressed the UN Security Council’s first quarterly debate on the Middle East for the year.  

The council debate also focused on the end of hostilities in Lebanon sparked by the war and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.