Next ICC prosecutor warns against sex crimes
Headline Legal News
The next chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court pledged Tuesday to strengthen efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of sexual and gender crimes.
A day after her election by the 119 countries that support the tribunal, Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda said too often gender crimes go unreported and unpunished and the victims are trivialized, denigrated, threatened and silenced, which enables the abuses to continue unimpeded.
In its first cases, she said, the ICC has sent the message that this is no longer acceptable and must stop.
The International Criminal Court, which began operating in 2002, is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. It is a court of last resort, stepping in only when countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
At the moment, the ICC is dealing with cases from Congo, the Central African Republic, Uganda involving the Lord's Resistance Army, the Darfur conflict in Sudan, the recent Libyan uprising, and post-election violence in Kenya and Ivory Coast.
At present, crimes such as rape, sexual slavery, and forced prostitution and pregnancy are alleged in some cases before the court in all of these situations except Libya, where an investigation of alleged gender-based crimes is still under way.
Related listings
-
High court to review tough Arizona immigration law
Headline Legal News 12/13/2011The Supreme Court stepped into the fight Monday over a tough Arizona law that requires local police to help enforce federal immigration laws — pushing the court deeper into hot, partisan issues of the 2012 election campaign. The court's election-year...
-
CA same-sex marriage ban gets another day in court
Headline Legal News 12/09/2011The sponsors of California's gay marriage ban renewed their effort Thursday to disqualify a federal judge because of his same-sex relationship, but they met a skeptical audience in an appeals court panel. It's the first time an American jurist's sexu...
-
Appeals court blocks cement plant pollution rule
Headline Legal News 12/09/2011A federal appeals court is blocking an Environmental Protection Agency rule designed to reduce pollution at cement plants. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington agreed with cement makers that the EPA did not properly draft th...
Does a car or truck accident count as a work injury?
If an employee is injured in a car crash while on the job, they are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. “On the job” injuries are not limited to accidents and injuries that happen inside the workplace, they may also include injuries suffered away from an employee’s place of work while performing a job-related task, such as making a delivery or traveling to a client meeting.
Regular commutes to and from work don’t usually count. If you get into an accident on your way in on a regular workday, it’s probably not considered a work injury for the purposes of workers’ compensation.
If you drive around as part of your job, an injury on the road or loading/unloading accident is likely a work injury. If you don’t typically drive around for work but are required to drive for the benefit of your employer, that would be a work injury in many cases.
If you are out of town for work, pretty much any driving would count as work related. For traveling employees, any accidents or injuries that happen on a work trip, even while not technically working, can be considered a work injury. The reason is because you wouldn’t be in that town in the first place, had you not been on a work trip.
Workers’ compensation claims for truck drivers, traveling employees and work-related injuries that occur away from the job site can be challenging and complex. At Krol, Bongiorno & Given, we understand that many families depend on the income of an injured worker, and we are proud of our record protecting the injured and disabled. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.