2020 ANNUAL REPORT

Enforcing human rights through legal means USING THE LAW. TO WORK TOGETHER FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE.

WE USE THE LAW TO FIGHT FOR A JUST FREE FROM TORTURE, OPPRESSION AND EXPLOITATION.

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BANK DETAILS ACCOUNT HOLDER: ECCHR BANK: BERLINER VOLKSBANK IBAN: DE77 100 90000 885360 7011 BIC/SWIFT: BEVODEBB 2020 ANNUAL REPORT ENFORCING HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGH LEGAL MEANS

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL The art of making a difference P. 4 WOLFGANG KALECK

LETTER FROM A FRIEND The law—An allegory P. 7 PRIYA BASIL

I. Challenging the gravest crimes P. 11 INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AND ACCOUNTABILITY

II. The business of irresponsibility P. 21 BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

III. Human rights without borders P. 33 MIGRATION

I V. Using and changing the law P. 43 INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION

V. Appendix P. 54 PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS P. 56 LEGAL INTERVENTIONS P. 60 CURRENT CASES AND PROJECTS P. 68 PUBLICATIONS P. 70 EVENTS P. 72 COUNCIL, ADVISORY BOARD AND TEAM P. 76 PARTNER LAWYERS AND ACADEMICS P. 78 NETWORKS AND DONORS P. 79 FINANCES P. 81 DECOLONIZING THE CAMERA IN PRACTICE: IXMUCANÉ AGUILAR IN NAMIBIA 3 EDITORIAL The art of making a difference

WOLFGANG KALECK In his book Die Kunst, Unterschiede zu machen,1 filmmaker Alexander Kluge tells the story of a teacher, Gaby Teichert, who experiences— and survives—the bombing of Halberstadt, , in April 1945. During the bombing, Gaby asks herself what she could have done differently in life so that she would not now be sitting, powerless, in a bomb shelter. In that moment, she was as powerless as we have been over the past year, overwhelmed by the pandemic, but under considerably different conditions. “But,” Kluge elaborated in a 2020 interview, “in 1929, she and 40,000 other teachers could have educated adults in a way that might have prevented the rise of Hitler, who had low election results at the time.” He continued by noting that Gaby Teichert “would have had power in 1929, but not in 1945. In 2021, together we have the power to advocate for the fate of our children and our republics. Power over something that, if we are inert, may give us a nasty surprise in 2032. We must be active.” It is important to remember that there are other major crises in the world besides the pandemic, and always have been. At no time in history—neither during the Spanish flu outbreak that followed World War I, nor during World War II, all of which caused more destruction and death—did people bury their heads in the sand and become as paralyzed in their actions as they often seemed to be in 2020.

Recognizing differences and privileges has been our guiding principle in 2020

It is clear that we all have to fight. This goes for each and every one of us, as well as for ECCHR. As an organization, we made it through the year well with reliable IT infrastructure and the ability to work from home. However, we realized once again that human rights work in other parts of the world is much riskier and often more exhausting and grueling—now more than ever. Recognizing these differences and our privileges while still trying to act together in a spirit of global solidarity has been our guiding principle in 2020. This has not been, and will not be easy in the future. We have adjusted to this ongoing process, which does not mean that it has been simple.

4 2020 ANNUAL REPORT

At least—and we already consider this an enormous achievement— we were able to advance our legal work, unfortunately with mixed results. The European Court of Human Rights’ negative ruling in ND and NT v. on illegal push-backs at the Spanish-Moroccan border in February 2020 was blatantly wrong and the result of political pressure (see p. 36). The December 2020 decision by the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor not to open a formal investigation into the thousands of cases of abuse, murder and rape committed by British troops in also falls into this category (see p. 18). We appreciate even small successes, though, of course, we always strive for more and do everything we can to achieve it. For example, international media coverage of the two cases mentioned above offers a more nuanced picture: namely that the ICC also found that the alleged abuses, as well as the failure to investigate them, did in fact occur. And internationally, the ECtHR’s ruling that failed to condemn Spain for the practice of brutally pushing back refugees has been overwhelmingly criticized by lawyers and NGOs around the world. Those are no small feats. But smart legal briefs are not enough, particularly because we know who we are dealing with in our cases: opponents with disproportionately more political and economic power.

We want to effectively enforce human rights

We want to achieve more than just small gains. We want to effectively enforce human rights, including in situations resulting from systemic injustices, such as growing economic inequality and the denial of access to social and health systems. If the global right to health for all people had been respected over the past two decades, we would all be better off today. To enforce these rights, we need partners in Germany and around the world. We need to work with academics, social movements and artists, all of whom inspire our work, and whom our work in turn drives forward. We need to foster and strengthen institutions for political education. All of this—our work and that of our partners and friends—requires diverse support during the pandemic and in the face of an impending economic downturn. We would like to thank you for your support and take this opportunity to ask for it once again. We want to continue to make the necessary difference so that our future holds fewer unpleasant surprises.

WOLFGANG KALECK IS THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE EUROPEAN CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS.

1 ENGLISH: THE ART OF MAKING A DIFFERENCE

5 6 LETTER FROM A FRIEND The law— An allegory

PRIYA BASIL Something is still missing. Please try again. It popped up as usual, the same old message, the words that greeted my attempts to present. Yet another detail was needed. Only when the missing part was there could things proceed. The routine used to be simpler; it was clear who mattered, who was presumed innocent or not. You went through the motions, and justice was said to be served. Now, things were changing in a bid to help people look differently, stay alert, close the gap between word and deed: you had to find and bring an image that might solve a puzzle, only you never got to see all the pieces. It was like trying to have an entire world in your head at once, then identify any omissions. How do you spot what you’re not even aware is there to see? Of course, I remained committed. I’m a professional after all. Just because my job had to be done differently didn’t mean I was no longer qualified. I returned again and again to the law with a new image, and was told: something is still missing. I never skipped a chance to present, no matter my state of mind or body—unlike others, who were lazier, or disdained the practice altogether. I was advised to get help, but I believed I could work this out. I would put it on my card: figured it out for myself. It was just one image, after all. I must be close. Next time, I always told myself. But, gradually, weariness began niggling at me, like the stones that showed up sometimes in my shoe, those I threw away, the fatigue was harder to throw off. Still, I continued the practice. As I went about, I noticed more people present in the streets; groups waving placards, chanting names, seeking justice. Many carried bags, some of which were bulging, their owners bent under the load. I wondered what they held, but I was too busy to stop and ask. Once, after I’d presented, the woman behind me said, in everything you see only yourself. What do you know? I thought. She didn’t look like an official. I tried to make out what she was presenting and glimpsed some acronym on her image, three letters. Her submission was accepted. As she left, I spotted her bulky backpack. I asked what was in there and to my surprise she paused to reply: The weight of change, she said. How much are you prepared to give up or to shoulder? After that I stopped bothering, just presented pictures at random, whatever was at hand: a sweet wrapper, a news clip, my lunch. The message didn’t alter. One day, on my way to present, a stranger stopped me in the street and handed me a stone, explaining that it was part of a set of twins, one of which was natural stone, one a cast of the other in bronze. The person had been meaning to give away one stone ever since acquiring them a decade before. The stones were a pair that would only be complete once separated, but all this time the person could not bear to part with one, let alone decide which to give away.

7 LETTER FROM A FRIEND

The person had often walked around with a stone, in search of someone to whom they might offer it. Nothing ever felt more precious than in the moment when you reached for it with the intention of relinquishing possession, and that was why countless times the person had failed to let go. I tried to return the stone, it felt like too much responsibility— but the person was already backing away, weeping and thanking me. What should I do with it? I asked. It felt so heavy in my palm, it felt like I had been given the world. Recognize its worth, the person said, then pass it on. The person was gone, and I was holding this bronze stone. I took a picture of it and went on, enjoying its weight and warmth. I began to imagine what I would do with the stone, where I would display it, how I would tell the story of being chosen. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I had to give up the stone right away, that if I did not do so now perhaps I would never manage. I saw this clearly, yet I did not want to surrender what had come to me just minutes before, but felt like it had belonged to me forever and should remain mine alone for all time. I continued towards the law, clutching the stone. Why me? I wondered. And then, before I could think, I stopped a stranger and presented the stone, pressing it into unknown hands, which were smaller than mine and carefully accepted my offering. Then it was me, weeping and waving the stone off on its way. I was reluctant to present the picture, it was all I had left of the exchange, but maybe the spirit of the stone was still with me and guided me on. So I presented and received the message: thank you for a missing part. Please continue. I could barely believe my eyes. What did this mean? I stumbled out, elated and confused.

It felt so heavy in my palm, it felt like I had been given the world

It wasn’t over. That was what everyone confirmed when I described what had happened. Only the nature of the task changes, I was told, you still have to keep presenting. The search doesn’t end. Nothing is set in stone. I felt baffled. It was an odd puzzle that any piece could fit, yet no piece could end. A greedy puzzle, I said, that kept setting new hurdles. Those around me went silent. A generous puzzle, one finally said, open to all, inviting another try. The others nodded, and I found myself nodding too. The following day I came upon a crowd of refusers protesting the practice of presenting. They waved banners and shouted slogans: Perfectly Complete Just As We Are. No Need For Other Parts. Nothing To Fix Except The Fixation On Fixing. There was a counter-demo too with their own banners and slogans: Can You Ever Stop Looking? Much May Not Be Visible But Still We Know It Is There. Does It Matter More To See Or Be Seen? I watched from a distance and wondered if we were all refusers deep down, or if it was just me who resisted even as I accepted, who held back as I gave, who received with a desire to own.

8 2020 ANNUAL REPORT

After that, I missed a year of presenting. The strange thing was that even then, my eyes sought the missing, alighted on absences, wandered after fragments, and all the while I spoke to strangers asking if they had ever received a bronze stone. Nobody had, but many knew of other stones with other stories: stones that had made walls or roads; stones that marked death and life; stones from all places and all times. They shared these with me; some even gave me a stone, which I in turn passed on, but somehow I ended up with more stones than I gave. I have a box filled with stones from that period. The box is tied with ribbon; it sits on my table, in full view. Recently, somebody asked me if it was a present. I said, no. And then, I changed my mind and said, yes. A gift I found hard to live with, but needed to keep.

PRIYA BASIL IS A WRITER AND ACTIVIST. SHE HAS PUBLISHED BOOKS OF FICTION AND NON-FICTION, AND NUMEROUS ESSAYS. A LONG-STANDING ECCHR PARTNER, SHE BECAME A BOARD MEMBER IN 2020.

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International Crimes and Accountability I . CHALLENGING THE GRAVEST CRIMES

The gravest human rights abuses and crimes against humanity must be legally challenged—regardless of who commits them or where they are committed. Whether in dictatorships or democracies, state officials who repeatedly perpetrate, aid and abet, or fail to sanction international crimes must be held to account. Those responsible for such crimes, especially from powerful states like the , the and Germany, often manage to evade legal accountability. Impunity for international crimes, torture and sexual violence must end, especially when they are ordered, committed or tolerated at the highest political and military levels. Affected societies can only heal when injustice is addressed. ECCHR therefore uses various legal means and forums to highlight legal imbalances and double standards in efforts to achieve justice for grave crimes.

Donate now HOLDING EVEN THE MOST POWERFUL ACTORS TO ACCOUNT.

WE INTERVENE WHEN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC POWER THREATEN TO TRUMP JUSTICE. OUR WORK AIMS TO STOP TORTURE, SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND WAR CRIMES FROM GOING UNPUNISHED.

ECCHR.EU/DONATE INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AND ACCOUNTABILITY Justice cannot be divided

JOUMANA SEIF In spring 2018, in a café on the Spree riverbank Rape and sexual violence are not merely in Berlin, I met “Maya,” a young woman in physical forms of violence; they also destroy her mid-20s, with a sweet smile and light- the soul. Can Syrian women’s souls survive colored hijab that added serenity to her look. if society does not recognize these crimes, We planned to talk about detention in . restore victims’ dignity and provide them with Maya, an activist and survivor, wanted our support, care and services? Shouldn’t these conversation to be fun, but soon she was crimes be condemned and the perpetrators crying silent tears as she spoke about her rape punished, even though investigating them in a Syrian prison. What agonized her most is challenging and requires a deep and were her rapist’s words: “You’ll never recover. engendered understanding of their patriarchal Each time you attempt to do so, you’ll context? Indeed, the Assad family’s dictatorial remember me. Do not forget to tell your family regime that for decades has traumatized us about this.” I was deeply moved by her Syrians with detention, torture, murder and openness; I had not been prepared to hear her rape, has allied with religious authorities and tragedy. Even more painful was what she said strengthened the patriarchy to silence people, next: “I would never reveal it to anyone else. suppress their souls and prevent victims from Please forget everything I said. I need to start disclosing the crimes committed against them. a new life.” What I am certain of more than ever before is Pain can never that justice cannot be divided between sexual subside without justice crimes and other international crimes. Justice will not be achieved without identifying the systematic nature of sexual and gender-based Helpless thoughts scrambled through my violence and holding the perpetrators head. Will Maya be okay? Professionally, accountable. I had to respect her decision. But from the JOUMANA SEIF IS A SYRIAN LAWYER AND human, moral perspective, I knew that she WOMEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVIST. IN 2017, SHE JOINED ECCHR AS A RESEARCH FELLOW should receive psychological support. And WITH A FOCUS ON SEXUAL VIOLENCE. that pain like hers can never subside without actual justice. Today, I am still haunted with similar questions. When will Syrian women be able to report sexual violence against them? How long will they keep saying, “I don’t dare tell anyone”? How long will victims continue to fear stigma and feel guilty? “Thirty years later, I am still training myself to forget,” a survivor said to me once. Another stated, “I cannot forget. In front of my husband and children, I pretend I am fine, but I cry alone at night.”

13 INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AND ACCOUNTABILITY A first step Addressing Syrian state torture in Germany

What does it take to bring torture by the Syrian Assad government to justice? The first trial worldwide on state torture in Syria, which began in April 2020, showed that it takes years of work by survivors and NGOs, seven criminal complaints filed by ECCHR and its partners in four European countries, and investigations by authorities around the world. The main defendant before the Koblenz Higher Regional Court, Anwar R, a former General Intelligence Service official, is charged with complicity in 4000 cases of torture, the killing of 58 people, and two cases of sexual violence between April 2011 and 2012. In February 2021, his associate Eyad A was sentenced to four years and six months in prison for aiding and abetting 30 cases of torture and grave deprivation of liberty. This is the first time a former member of the Syrian intelligence services has been convicted for crimes against humanity.

This trial sends an important message to survivors and the international community

Fifty-two days of hearings took place in Koblenz in 2020. Survivor testimonies composed some of the most important moments of the trial. They clearly described how torture, abuse and inhumane living conditions are everyday occurrences in Syrian intelligence service detention centers. ECCHR supports 29 survivors in the trial, 14 of whom are joint plaintiffs, and documents every day of the proceedings.1 This trial sends an important message to survivors and the international community. However, the German judiciary still has catching up to do in how it handles international cases. For example, the al-Khatib trial takes place in German mostly without interpretation for members of the Arabic-speaking public, preventing their deeper engagement in the trial. Another weakness was the approach to investigating sexual violence. But as of March 2021, the court is finally trying sexual and gender-based violence in the al-Khatib Branch for what it is: a crime against humanity committed as part of the systematic attack on the Syrian population. This followed a submission by ECCHR partner lawyers in November 2020. Already in June of that year, ECCHR together with torture survivors and the Syrian organizations Urnammu and Syrian Women’s Network had filed a complaint with the German Federal Public Prosecutor and demanded that the German judiciary prosecute sexual violence in Syria as an international crime in its investigations and future trials.

1 DAILY TRIAL REPORTS ARE AVAILABLE AT ECCHR.EU/SYRIA 14 2020 APRIL The world’s first trial on Syrian state torture, the al-Khatib trial, begins in Koblenz, Germany, against Anwar R and Eyad A 2011 J U N E MARCH Criminal complaint Arab Spring, Syrians about sexual and openly demonstrate 2016 gender-based against the Assad NOVEMBER violence in Syrian government detention centers as a Those affected, 2018 crime against Assad reacts with ECCHR and Sherpa M AY humanity massive, systematic file a criminal Criminal complaint 2000 violence, arrests, complaint in NOVEMBER in Austria JULY disappearances and against the French For the first time, a Bashar al-Assad torture. Syrians cement manufactu- J U N E German citizen joins succeeds his father increasingly flee the rer Lafarge for German Federal a criminal complaint Hafez as president of country, including to aiding and abetting Court of Justice against the Syrian Syria. The country war crimes in Syria, issues arrest warrant intelligence services. has been under the Germany’s Federal alleging that Lafarge for Jamil Hassan, He was detained in dictatorial rule of the Prosecutor opens colluded with the thanks in part to Syria in 2018 as a Assad family since structural investiga- Islamic State, among ECCHR’s criminal humanitarian aid 1970 tions into Syria other crimes complaints worker

2002 2012 2017 2019 2021 JUNE ECCHR starts MARCH F E B R U A R Y F E B R U A R Y Germany’s Code of working to address ECCHR files first Criminal complaint Eyad A is sentenced Crimes against human rights crimes criminal complaint in to four years and six in Syria International Law in Germany against F E B R U A R Y months in prison. (Völkerstrafgesetz- Syrian Military Anwar R’s trial will German Federal buch) comes into Intelligence officials continue at least Court of Justice has force. The principle for human rights until fall 2021 two former of universal crimes 1 members of the MARCH jurisdiction makes SEPTEMBER Syrian General Sexual violence it possible to Criminal complaint Intelligence Service, in al-Khatib Branch investigate grave in Germany against Anwar R and charged as crime crimes, even if they Syrian Intelligence Eyad A, arrested against humanity were not committed Service and Military in Germany in Germany Investigations Police officials; OCTOBER against high-ranking thousands of “Caesar German Federal Syrian officials in photos” documen- Prosecutor charges Germany, Austria, ting corpses from Anwar R and Eyad A France and Sweden Syrian detention with crimes against continue centers are handed humanity and over to the Federal other crimes Public Prosecutor 1 ECCHR SUBMITTED ALL CRIMINAL NOVEMBER NOVEMBER COMPLAINTS Criminal complaint TOGETHER WITH Criminal complaint SYRIAN TORTURE in SURVIVORS AS WELL in Germany against AS SYRIAN AND members of the LOCAL PARTNERS Syrian Air Force Intelligence, including its head Jamil Hassan

15 INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AND ACCOUNTABILITY Application No. 4871/16 Hanan v. Germany

EXCERPT: ORAL SUBMISSION 63. Notably, Germany did not remove nor even ON BEHALF OF THE APPLICANT temporarily discharge the Colonel responsible EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS GRAND CHAMBER HEARING for the strike. Instead, he was tasked with the 26 FEBRUARY 2020 fact-finding the morning after (and later even READ BY: WOLFGANG KALECK (ECCHR GENERAL SECRETARY promoted to General). […] AND LAWYER) AND DAPO AKANDE (PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY 88. OF OXFORD) To conclude: Germany is responsible for the strike that killed the children of the Honorable Judges, Applicant […] and Germany failed to properly investigate the strike and the right to life 1. On September 4th 2009, an airstrike near Kunduz in killed the children violations. It is on this basis that we ask of my client, Mr. Abdul Hanan, and many this Court to declare that Germany violated civilians. Abdul Bayan and Nesarullah were articles 2 and 13 of the Convention. only 8 and 12 years old. 89. As Mr. Abdul Hanan recently emphasized to us, he and the people of his village are still 2. The strike was ordered by the German Colonel Klein, at the German Army base. […] traumatized by the devastating consequences of that bombing. He appreciates the fact that 3. Since that fatal night, Abdul Hanan has today’s hearing is taking place. He wants been struggling to get justice. […] justice for his sons, and he wants to be treated like everybody else. He is not demanding 4. […] As we will show, Germany could and anything but the application of the Convention should have taken specific measures to comply in accordance with the Court’s long-standing with its obligations under articles 2 and 13 of case law. the [European Convention on Human Rights], even in the difficult security conditions of IN FEBRUARY 2020, THE GRAND CHAMBER OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS Afghanistan at the time. IN STRASBOURG HEARD THE CASE OF ABDUL HANAN WHO LOST TWO SONS IN A GERMAN AIRSTRIKE NEAR THE KUNDUZ RIVER IN 5. We will first show the admissibility of the AFGHANISTAN IN SEPTEMBER 2009. ECCHR HAS BEEN ASSISTING HIS CASE FOR OVER case by addressing the exhaustion of remedies, TEN YEARS. and then […] the parts of attribution and IN FEBRUARY 2021, THE COURT DECIDED: GERMANY MADE MISTAKES, BUT DID ENOUGH jurisdiction. Afterwards, I will continue with OVERALL TO INVESTIGATE THE AIRSTRIKE. the merits of the case. […]

9. My client argued that the investigations were ineffective because, inter alia: · A number of relevant witnesses, such as the bomber pilots, were not heard; · The assumptions of the German Colonel that led to the strike were not challenged; · Independent military experts were not heard; · The causes of deaths of the Applicant’s sons and of the other estimated 100 civilians were not established. […]

16 INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AND ACCOUNTABILITY Killing from afar Germany enables US drone strikes that violate international law

Four missiles fired by US drones hit a family gathering in the Yemeni village of Khashamir in summer 2012. Two members of the bin Ali Jaber family were killed, and many survivors remain traumatized to this day. The US attack is just one of thousands in the so-called war on terror that hit innocent people time and again, and for which the US receives support from Europe: without facilities like the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the US drone program would not be possible. The airbase in southwest Germany serves as a central data interface for the US, radio equipment (a relay station) there enables the US Air Force to control drones in and , for example. In November 2020, the German Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig could have put an end to drone attacks via Ramstein, which violate international law. Back in 2014, three members of the bin Ali Jaber family, together with ECCHR and Reprieve, filed a lawsuit against Germany at the Cologne Administrative Court. In March 2019, the Münster Higher Administrative Court ruled that the German government must take action to ensure that the US military respects international law in using Ramstein. But on appeal, the Leipzig court ruled that it was sufficient for theUS to have assured German officials in diplomatic talks that its actions comply with international law. In its ruling, the Leipzig court ignored the fact that US drone strikes frequently involve international humanitarian law violations. The plaintiffs are now preparing a constitutional complaint.

Without facilities like the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the US drone program would not be possible

In 2020, the German government also discussed whether arming German military drones was ethically and legally justifiable. ECCHR made clear at a hearing in the German Parliament defense committee that armed drones enable violations of international law, so Germany should not allow them in the first place. The decision is still pending. There is hope that in the future, Germany will more consistently reject the use of armed drones, including attacks from German soil that violate international legal standards.

17 INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AND ACCOUNTABILITY When might makes right No trial for British war crimes in Iraq

Despite confirmed evidence that British troops systematically committed grave crimes, including torture, murder and rape, during the Iraq War and subsequent occupation, the International Criminal Court will not continue to investigate UK nationals in relation to these crimes. In December 2020, the Office of the Prosecutor in The Hague announced it was closing its six-year-long preliminary investigation because it could not prove that British authorities were “unwilling” to adequately investigate the alleged crimes. The verdict is a severe blow to Iraqi survivors and affected communities. The ICC can only take on cases that a country’s judiciary is unwilling or unable to adequately address. This is precisely the case for British war crimes committed in Iraq between 2003 and 2009, which the UK has failed across the board to examine. There have been no criminal prosecutions in response to hundreds of complaints filed by affected Iraqis and no high-ranking UK officials have had to answer for these crimes in court. The British Ministry of Defense and military also allegedly covered up evidence. It is therefore difficult to understand how the ICC chief prosecutor arrived at her verdict—especially as she again confirmed that war crimes had indeed been committed.

The UK failed across the board to address the crimes in Iraq

In 2014, the Office of the Prosecutor began preliminary investigations into alleged crimes by UK troops in Iraq for the second time, following a communication filed byECCHR and Public Interest Lawyers. Then in 2017, the prosecutor declared that there was a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes had been committed. In 2019, ECCHR submitted additional evidence that the UK was failing to adequately address its troops’ systematic abuses in Iraq. The ICC’s 2020 decision again demonstrates the double standards of international law enforcement, proving that powerful actors can still get away with torture. It also shows that the ICC is unwilling to address the impunity gap at the national level, the very task for which it was created.

18 INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AND ACCOUNTABILITY “ He should have to answer to justice, no matter where he is”

INTERVIEW WITH ANAHÍ MAROCCHI Why did you come from to When the case became public, I received Germany to file a criminal complaint against immediate support and solidarity in this call former Argentine military officer Luis K? for justice, from Argentine institutions and civil society organizations as well as Germany. My brother Omar was among the victims of Even though my criminal complaint is Luis K’s alleged crimes. Luis K was part individual and for my brother, all the other of the Argentine dictatorship’s repressive victims are part of this claim. apparatus, and had a high degree of responsibility. However, he took refuge in What do you expect from German judicial Germany and obtained German citizenship, authorities? What do you hope for? thereby avoiding the Argentine judiciary’s Justice for my brother and all other victims. summons for crimes against humanity. But I think of my and everyone’s grandchildren, he should have to answer to justice, no for whom we need to build a present that matter where he is. guarantees the future we deserve. Without Our Argentine lawyer put me in touch with justice—if impunity prevails—the Simon Rau, who worked for ECCHR in foundations of such a future are profoundly Germany.1 In him, I found an extraordinary weakened. ally. He had a great warmth, and provided a The road to the legal truth is not easy when door to my search for justice. Through him, such abhorrent crimes were committed I met ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang and hidden by the state. I trust that German Kaleck, whose personal support strengthened authorities will show the necessary our bond despite the distance. commitment to achieve the justice for Your brother was disappeared more than which we long. 40 years ago. Why is it still important FORMER ARGENTINE MILITARY OFFICER to fight for accountability today? LUIS K IS WANTED IN ARGENTINA FOR HIS INVOLVEMENT IN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY DURING THE COUNTRY’S MILITARY I knew this complaint would take an emotional DICTATORSHIP (1976–83). AS A GERMAN CITIZEN, HE CANNOT BE EXTRADITED, BUT toll on me, but it also had a gratifying, THE GERMAN JUDICIARY CAN INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE HIM. IN JUNE 2018, reparative effect. Our quest was to reconstruct ANAHÍ MAROCCHI, SUPPORTED BY ECCHR, FILED A CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AGAINST the truth and obtain justice for the murdered LUIS K WITH THE BERLIN PUBLIC PROSECUTOR. victims and to build collective memory. 1 PERSONAL NOTE: I WOULD LIKE TO HONOR THE MEMORY OF SIMON RAU, WHO Only this can guarantee that these atrocities DIED IN JUNE 2019, AND WHO WON OUR HEARTS DURING THE TIME WE SHARED occur nunca más (never again). TOGETHER WHILE HE CARRIED OUT THIS EXCELLENT AND COMMITTED INVESTIGATION

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Business and Human Rights I I . THE BUSINESS OF IRRESPONSIBILITY

Companies routinely violate human rights. Industries involved in raw material extraction frequently displace people, exploit mineworkers and destroy the environment. Factory working conditions cost lives. Exports are not neutral business transactions either: companies from the Global North contribute to human rights violations worldwide by exporting weapons, surveillance technology and raw materials to dictatorships and warring parties. But export licenses do not release corporate actors from their human rights due diligence obligations—a license to export is not an obligation to do so. Companies have their own human rights due diligence obligations. In 2020, ECCHR intervened to ensure that the principle of “human rights before profit” prevails, and companies face their responsibilities. We want to help change unequal power relations in the global economy to make sure that those affected receive justice, and to reform legal frameworks governing prevailing business practices worldwide.

Donate today ENFORCING SOCIAL HUMAN RIGHTS.

WE HOLD CORPORATIONS THAT EXPLOIT PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT FOR PROFIT TO ACCOUNT. TOGETHER WITH THOSE AFFECTED, WE USE LEGAL MEANS TO FIGHT FOR GLOBAL SOCIAL JUSTICE.

ECCHR.EU/DONATE BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS Garment supply chains in intensive care? Human rights due diligence in times of (economic) crises

CORINA AJDER, MIRIAM SAAGE-MAASS & BEN VANPEPERSTRAETE The new coronavirus affects almost every Still, human rights are the benchmarks by area of people’s lives and economic activity which government and business activity must and has led to a significant disruption of world be measured, and they remain applicable in trade. The current situation demonstrates times of severe economic crises. This current how precarious our global systems of crisis clearly shows that if governments and production and consumption are. In response corporations had more seriously fulfilled and to the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant respected human rights in recent years, number of consumer countries in Europe especially economic and social rights, fewer declared a “lockdown,” imposed movement workers would be hit as hard by the current restrictions and closed retail shops. This situation. Social security systems—to which has led to a drastic drop in demand, hitting all people have a right—prepare societies to garment sector brands and retailers alleviate hardships created by crises such as particularly hard. COVID-19. Their absence allows full-blown violations of social and economic human Many global brands and retailers’ instant rights like those to food, adequate housing, reaction was to unilaterally cancel orders health and social protection. for goods already produced or in the process of being produced. Faced with the THIS TEXT IS AN EXTRACT OF AN ECCHR POLICY PAPER FROM APRIL 2020. COVID-19 crisis, textile companies fall back MIRIAM SAAGE-MAASS HEADS THE BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRAM, WHERE on exactly what their supply chains are CORINA AJDER AND BEN VANPEPERSTRAETE designed for: externalizing costs, outsourcing WORK AS LEGAL ADVISORS. economic risk, and shifting the responsibility for workers’ social rights to suppliers. They simply leave behind corporate social responsibility promises as well as human rights obligations. With this reaction, once again, the garment sector is a paradigmatic example of the dynamics in global supply chains.

23 BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS Voluntary commitments are not enough Supply chain laws for Germany and the EU

Time and again, companies claim that they do enough voluntarily to protect people and the environment. But it is not just cases like the Ali Enterprises factory fire in , the Brumadinho dam failure in and Électricité de France’s wind farms in that show this is not true. Along supply chains—particularly when it comes to suppliers and subsidiaries’ factories abroad—European companies often avoid complying with international human rights standards. Less than a quarter of all companies in Germany voluntarily comply with human rights due diligence requirements. Accordingly, the German government has long debated a mandatory due diligence law that would finally require companies to protect people and the environment. With petitions, third-party interventions and protests, the Initiative Lieferkettengesetz (the Supply Chain Law Initiative), of which ECCHR is an active member, has shown that a mandatory human rights due diligence law in Germany and on the EU level is not just necessary, but feasible.

A human rights due diligence law in Germany and the EU is feasible

In February 2021, the responsible ministers in Germany finally announced their agreement on a draft law. But due to business association lobbying, the draft was severely weakened. We at ECCHR will do everything we can to ensure that Germany passes an effective and strong due diligence law that serves the interests of those most affected by corporate human rights abuses, rather than the interests of powerful corporations.

24 Current situation without a due diligence law

LACK OF CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE

What do we need to change that?

LEGALLY BINDING OBLIGATION FOR COMPANIES TO RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS ACROSS THE ENTIRE SUPPLY CHAIN

Reporting

LEADS TO PREVENTION OF Evaluating HUMAN Risk RIGHTS AND measures ENVIRONMENTAL analysis ABUSES

Prevention and remediation measures

To implement this, a law needs:

SCOPE VERIFIABILITY Due diligence along the entire production State authorities must be able to check—and and value chain sanction—compliance with the law

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION CIVIL LIABILITY Human rights and environmental Those affected by corporate human rights violations protection belong together should be able to sue for damages in court

Who should it apply to?

LARGE COMPANIES With more than 250 employees, a balance sheet SMALL AND MID-SIZED COMPANIES of more than 20 million euros, or more than 40 million From high-risk sectors, such as textiles euros in annual sales (2 of these factors)

Consequences of non-compliance:

FINES NO ACCESS TO PUBLIC SUBSIDIES

25 BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS Bem-vindo, presidente!1

CLAUDIA MÜLLER-HOFF “The struggle is the same today as it was then.” Lúcio died in June 2019. Shortly before that, he The first time I heard Lúcio Bellentani speak was full of energy and asked who would carry about his time as a prisoner of the military on his mission of memory and justice. I can dictatorship in Brazil, a shiver went down still hear him enthusiastically saying, “Now, my spine. He was talking on a stage in a under [President] Bolsonaro, […] young Berlin theater and I was sitting in the back people are interested, they want to fight!” row. And yet, that energy transferred: from And they do. In September 2020, with affected his experience in a Brazilian torture prison workers’ involvement, the authorities and VW in 1972 to my reality in urban Germany in do Brasil signed an out-of-court “commitment the fall of 2017. to change behavior.” The price, as usual, is that the company does not have to acknowledge The price is that the any wrongdoing. At the very least, however, company does not VW must pay approximately 5.6 million euros to support those affected and commission have to acknowledge academic research about its actions during the any wrongdoing military dictatorship. However, much more is needed to “change During the Brazilian military dictatorship behavior.” Companies must actively (1964–1985), Bellentani worked at reject anti-democratic policies and refuse Volkswagen do Brasil, a subsidiary of the to cooperate with illiberal governments. German automaker VW, and was an active Otherwise, they endanger human rights. trade unionist. In July 1972, secret police This is just as true today as it was then. officers arrested him at his workplace—in full Companies must choose wisely on which view of VW factory security. Bellentani then side they want to be. spent eight months in a torture prison and CLAUDIA MÜLLER-HOFF IS A SENIOR LEGAL 16 months in another prison. In September ADVISOR IN ECCHR’S BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRAM AND HAS WORKED FOR 2015, he and other trade unionists filed a MANY YEARS TO ADDRESS LATIN AMERICAN DICTATORSHIP CRIMES. ECCHR GENERAL complaint against VW do Brasil. They alleged SECRETARY WOLFGANG KALECK WAS LÚCIO that the company had spied on its workforce BELLENTANI’S LAWYER. and turned in members of the opposition 1 COMPANIES LIKE THE VOLKSWAGEN SUBSIDIARY VW DO BRASIL EMBRACED NEW to the secret police. Investigations concluded PRESIDENTS OF THE BRAZILIAN MILITARY DICTATORSHIP WITH PHRASES that VW systematically passed on information LIKE “WELCOME, MR. PRESIDENT!” about undesirable workers to the dictatorship’s torture apparatus. A verdict was never reached.

26 BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS Toxic double standards in the pesticide business Legal action against Swiss agrochemical company Syngenta

Products that are so toxic that they are banned in Europe should not be used elsewhere. But the European pesticide industry takes advantage of less strict regulations in other countries, and exports highly toxic pesticides to the Global South. There, workers often lack adequate protective gear and some cannot even read the products’ hazard labels. This frequently results in—sometimes fatal—poisonings. But Indian farm workers are now fighting back. Spraying Swiss agrochemical company Syngenta’s insecticide Polo on their cotton fields led to several severe cases of poisoning. Polo’s active ingredient, diafenthiuron, has been banned from use in the EU since 2002, and withdrew the product from its market over ten years ago.

People in the Global South should not pay with their health for double standards of the Global North

In September 2020, the widows of two farmers who died from pesticide poisoning and a survivor filed a lawsuit against Syngenta in Switzerland. The claimants demand that Syngenta be held liable for damages caused by defects in its product. They claim the company failed to adequately inform farmers about Polo’s dangers and knowingly sold it to people without access to suitable protective equipment. ECCHR and the law firm schadenanwaelte support the plaintiffs. The lawsuit is the first of its kind and could help many affected people—even beyond Syngenta and —file claims for damages. In addition, PAN India, the Maharashtra Association of Pesticide Poisoned Persons, ECCHR and the Swiss organization Public Eye filed a complaint on behalf of 51 affected families with the OECD National Contact Point in Bern. In January 2021, Syngenta agreed to participate in negotiations. The Syngenta case shows once again that companies must be legally obligated to protect people and the environment, whether it concerns the extraction of raw materials or the safe use of consumer products. People in the Global South should not continue to pay with their health for the toxic double standards of companies from the Global North.

27 28 BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS “ Amplifying our work on the ground”

RADHYA AL-MUTAWAKEL Several years after the war in Yemen Our partnership with ECCHR gave Mwatana’s started, Mwatana for Human Rights began accountability team the opportunity to learn conducting field research at sites where parties more about the tools of international legal to the conflict had committed human rights accountability. We were able to contribute violations. Based on this work, Mwatana our practical experience from conducting publicly advocated to show how the war in case work, and two team members had the Yemen impacts civilians. Eventually, we felt opportunity to join ECCHR in Berlin for three the need to start working in the field of legal months each, which was a very beneficial accountability as well. This is where the experience. Our partnership also helped our partnership with ECCHR became important— research team develop field documentation and unique. We did not take it for granted tools to support our legal efforts. that Mwatana, a Yemen-based organization, We are very proud of our partnership with would be able to find a true partner ECCHR. It has both added value to and helped like ECCHR to take serious steps together amplify the difficult work Mwatana does on towards accountability. the ground to obtain evidence of human rights abuses and international crimes.

Our cooperation RADHYA AL-MUTAWAKEL IS A HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER AND THE COFOUNDER AND made us strong CHAIRPERSON OF MWATANA FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, AN INDEPENDENT ORGANIZATION PROTECTING HUMAN RIGHTS IN YEMEN. ECCHR HAS BEEN WORKING WITH MWATANA ON EUROPEAN ARMS EXPORTS USED IN Mwatana’s cooperation with highly competent THE YEMEN WAR SINCE 2017. experts, particularly those with a deep belief in human rights and experience in using the law to push for ending abuses, made us feel strong and confident. With our European partners, we were able to file a complaint in regarding a /UAE-led coalition airstrike in which bomb parts manufactured in Italy played a role. We also submitted a communication to the International Criminal Court on the potential complicity of Western companies and states in war crimes in Yemen. This work gave us the opportunity to engage in inspiring discussions on possible avenues for holding all warring parties in Yemen—and those who support them—accountable for the grave human rights violations and international crimes they commit.

29 BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS The dirty business of clean energy French energy company disregards indigenous rights

The global climate crisis is one of the most pressing problems of our time, with devastating impacts on many fronts, including human rights. In some areas, habitats are flooding, while in others, droughts destroy crops and clean drinking water. Those affected worst by the climate crisis live in the Global South: the people who contribute the least to its causes. That is why Western energy companies in particular must become climate-neutral. But “green” energy is not always “clean”—as the case of the indigenous community Unión Hidalgo in Mexico shows. Électricité de France, France’s largest energy company, wants to build a wind farm on indigenous land in Oaxaca. However, the population has not been adequately consulted or comprehensively informed about the project. This violates their right to free, prior and informed consent for projects that affect their land. This right is essential for indigenous communities’ social cohesion and future, as they often have a unique relationship with their land. Where local communities are not adequately consulted, infrastructure projects can threaten indigenous land and culture. EDF and its Mexican subcontractors have also reportedly promised benefits to project supporters, while project critics and human rights defenders are being attacked and criminalized.

Infrastructure projects can threaten indigenous culture and land

In October 2020, members of the Unión Hidalgo community, along with ECCHR and the Mexican organization ProDESC, filed a civil lawsuit in France. The French Duty of Vigilance Law, similar to Germany’s planned supply chain law, obliges companies to analyze the negative impacts of their activities on the environment and human rights, and take appropriate measures to mitigate these risks. In particular, the plaintiffs demand that EDF suspend the project until the entire community is properly consulted, and the right to free, prior and informed consent is guaranteed. This is the only way EDF can prevent further human rights violations related to its project and fulfill its human rights due diligence obligations. For renewable energy to be truly clean, it must be free from human rights abuses.

30 BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS On climate justice

MIRIAM SAAGE-MAASS The current climate crisis is a complex, adequate food, and housing rely. We need to multidimensional predicament—including, embrace concepts such as the human right but not limited to, global warming and to a healthy environment that highlight the greenhouse gas emissions—that has political, connection between humans and nature. economic and cultural dimensions. Human rights are dependent on the quality of the environment and vice versa. In this regard, human rights law must be used to challenge those actors responsible for the ECCHR’s Business and Human Rights causes of the climate crisis—as in the case of program has long touched upon environmental a Peruvian farmer who sued energy giant and climate justice issues like the case of the RWE in Germany for future damages caused Brumadinho dam breach in Brazil that killed by its carbon dioxide emissions. However, 272 people and polluted the local river. human rights lawyers should also target the We also engage in legal interventions that underlying causes of the current climate challenge the negative impacts of the crisis: the prevailing capitalist economic and extractive industries and agribusiness. We will development model based on exploitation. continue fighting for the rights of indigenous This will require rethinking legal concepts peoples, smallholder farmers and agricultural of causation and responsibility, as this workers. And we are developing options crisis is intergenerational, global and difficult to widen our legal interventions for climate to capture with classic notions of cause justice. We hope to not only legally challenge and effect. the status quo of climate injustice, but also to advocate for alternative political and Human rights are economic systems that are better prepared to dependent on the quality ensure that global social rights are respected of the environment and fulfilled.

MIRIAM SAAGE-MAASS IS ECCHR’S VICE LEGAL DIRECTOR AND HEADS ITS We need a more comprehensive understanding BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRAM. of the relationship between humans and nature. And we have to accept that human life and natural ecosystems are interdependent: ecological systems support the resources on which human rights like those to water,

31

Migration III. HUMAN RIGHTS WITHOUT BORDERS

Time and again, refugees and migrants seeking sanctuary in Europe experience the exact opposite. Instead of receiving help and protection from war or persecution, they are often rejected and treated with hostility. Indeed, refugees and migrants are frequently met with violence and disenfranchisement at Europe’s external borders rather than support in claiming their human rights. Current European asylum and migration policies legitimize this treatment. Activists who assist those affected and save lives, such as in the Mediterranean Sea, are also increasingly harassed and prosecuted. But Europe’s borders are not a lawless zone. Everyone has the right to have rights, and to demand that those rights be upheld in court. ECCHR is committed to supporting refugees and migrants, as well as the activists working alongside them.

Donate now PROTECTING PEOPLE WHO ARE FLEEING WAR AND HARDSHIP.

WE ARE COMMITTED TO ENSURING THAT HUMAN RIGHTS ONCE AGAIN DETERMINE EUROPEAN MIGRATION AND ASYLUM POLICY. EVERY PERSON HAS THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS.

ECCHR.EU/DONATE MIGRATION “ Civilian sea rescue is human rights protection”

INTERVIEW WITH MARKUS BEEKO In 2020, the Iuventa crew of sea rescuers Does the media’s focus on sea rescuers push received the Amnesty Human Rights Award. migrants and refugees’ suffering into the How are human rights and civilian sea background? rescue in Europe connected? That danger does exist. But every report about Where states deliberately disregard their sea rescuers is a chance to shine a light on the search and rescue duties and people are at the fact that people are criticized and punished for mercy of drowning or violent militias, civilian saving lives. And a chance to remind ourselves sea rescue is a form of human rights protection. to take action. The Iuventa has rescued more than 14,000 What can legal interventions in international people in the Mediterranean. For this, some forums, such as ECCHR’s submissions to crew members are facing up to 20 years in the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of prison. The Amnesty prize therefore also goes human rights defenders, accomplish? to everyone facing persecution for defending the lives and rights of people on the move. They make clear that injustice is happening The situation in the Mediterranean remains here. They raise the issues of civilian sea dramatic and civilian sea rescuers’ work rescue, suffering, and the lack of adequate continues to be massively hampered. To make human rights protection at the international matters worse, in 2020, ports were closed level. They attract global attention and due to the pandemic and many rescued people increase the chance that states will have to could not be disembarked. explain and answer for their actions. Where Amnesty works to ensure that protection What has been the impact of Italy’s standards are created, rights are known and campaign to intimidate and systematically injustices are named, ECCHR contributes criminalize sea rescue? to enforcing those rights. Many sea rescuers have not been discouraged. MARKUS BEEKO IS SECRETARY GENERAL But criminalization and media defamation OF THE GERMAN SECTION OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND A MEMBER OF ECCHR’S campaigns are an enormous burden and ADVISORY BOARD. ECCHR HAS BEEN WORKING ON THE CRIMINALIZATION OF SEA RESCUE undermine societies’ crucial solidarity with IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SINCE 2019 AND SUPPORTS THE CREWS OF IUVENTA refugees and rescuers alike. AND SEA-WATCH 3.

35 MIGRATION The limits of the rule of law Unlawful push-backs in Europe

Push-backs, the practice of forcing people fleeing war, persecution and hardship back over a border immediately after they cross it, often brutally and without giving them a chance to be heard or apply for asylum, are unlawful. Article 4 of the 4th Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights states that the “(c)ollective expulsion of aliens is prohibited.” This is just one of many provisions that forbid push-backs. And yet, for years, border police have repeatedly pushed people back, usually by force, without examining their individual cases. Especially at the European Union’s external borders, this is a daily occurrence for those seeking protection in the EU from persecution or war. In February 2020, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered a devastating judgment in ND and NT v. Spain. The court rejected the complaints that ND and NT (names withheld for the applicants’ protection) filed withECCHR ’s support against Spain in 2015. The men had crossed the border fence structure in Melilla, which separates from Spain, in August 2014, and were immediately pushed back—without a hearing—along with approximately 70 other people.

Push-backs are unlawful

In its ruling, the ECtHR found that Spain’s push-backs did not violate the ban on collective expulsions. It reasoned that those affected should have formally sought legal protection at the border. By crossing the border “illegally,” the court ruled, they forfeited their right to protection from collective expulsion. Civil society and the legal community, both in Spain and internationally, strongly criticized the judgement because the reality at the border looks very different than the image painted by the court: Moroccan border guards’ racially motivated patrols make it impossible for Black people to reach the official border post where they could formally request asylum. An investigation by ECCHR and the research institution Forensic Architecture also confirmed these findings in June 2020. With the help of spatial analyses, reports from human rights authorities and NGOs, witness testimony, and official statistics, the research team created a video analysis. A reconstruction of the situation at the border near Melilla shows how Europe systematically keeps out refugees and migrants.

36 The border is surrounded by a complex security system and three barbed wire fences up to six meters high.

MELILLA BORDER FENCE

6M

SPAIN

MOROCCO

“Anyone would prefer to claim asylum, and not jump the fence. … It’s impossible … For us, Black persons, if we dare to set foot in town [Beni Enzar] … we are chased by the Moroccan police and military!”—Abou Bakar Sidibé, activist and filmmaker from Mali who lived in the Moroccan border area

SATELLITE IMAGE OF THE BORDER AREA

SPAIN 300M MOROCCO

To reach the official border post and formally apply for asylum, one would first have to evade constant police surveillance in the town of Beni Enzar and pass through three police checkpoints—where Black people are systematically denied passage—and not just reach the border post, but also make one’s case there. Prior to the day ND and NT were pushed back, no asylum applications were registered at the border. However, it is clear that people did try to cross the border before that—none of whom had been able to formally apply for asylum.

ASYLUM CLAIMS MADE TO SPAIN AT BENI ENZAR (SEPT 2014 — MAY 2017)

PALESTINE BENI ENZAR IRAQ

JORDAN

MOROCCO

SENEGAL YEMEN

GUINEA MIDDLE EAST & NORTH : 9,385 SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: 2

Ninety-nine percent of asylum applications filed at the Melilla border between 2014 and 2017 were by people from the Middle East and North Africa. This highlights how people from Sub-Saharan Africa continue to be denied access to protection in Europe. “This is racism. Nothing else.”—Abou Bakar Sidibé

37 MIGRATION The closed Balkan route?

Until the end of 2015, the so-called Balkan corridor was considered a comparatively safe route for people trying to reach Northern and Western Europe via , Croatia, Bosnia or . In spring 2016, however, the Balkan states closed their borders. To this day, migrants continue to try to reach Europe via this route that has been declared closed. Together with partner organizations and activists, we work to ensure that people along the Balkan corridor are informed of their rights and have access to fair procedures.

TRANSBALKAN SIMON CAMPBELL SOLIDARITY COLLECTIVE (BORDER VIOLENCE MONITORING NETWORK) “The situation along the border is unbearable “Conditions at the Croatian border remain for thousands of people who are forced extremely violent, with the continued and to struggle for survival daily. Many are systematic use of push-backs to remove undocumented, have no access to the health transit groups. Challenging illegal push-backs system or any kind of protection. People on at the European Court of Human Rights the move are exposed to perpetual push-backs is a critical step in holding perpetrating and physical abuse by the Croatian and authorities to account and upholding Bosnian police. Human rights lawyers are the principle of freedom of movement.” desperately needed, as is support to local professionals offering free legal services.” MADDALENA AVON (CENTRE FOR PEACE STUDIES)

JACK SAPOCH “In 2020, COVID-19 restrictions further limited (NO NAME KITCHEN) our work at the border. But we networked “Recent testimonies have described forced with local activists and organizations in the removal of clothing, prolonged beatings and border areas. Thanks to that, we succeeded the ‘stacking’ of people on top of each in writing several reports, filing complaints, other by Croatian authorities. We also noted and getting positive results in court. an increasing trend in 2020 of people being ECCHR’s work on migration is essential. We returned from Italy and Austria in so-called firmly believe in trans-border cooperation chain push-backs. ECCHR’s long-term and solidarity.” approach to strategic litigation provides a vital complement to the work of grassroots NICOLE VÖGELE activists such as ourselves working along (JOURNALIST) the Croatian border.” “Migrants trying to seek protection in the EU are denied the possibility to apply for asylum and packed into cargo vans and dumped— like human garbage—outside the EU. There has yet to be a single verdict on such push- back cases at the Croatian-Bosnian border.”

38 MIGRATION Push-backs at the Bosnian-Croatian border

Push-backs are commonplace at the EU’s external border between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those who want to enter the EU via Croatia report being beaten, tasered and pepper-sprayed. In most cases, refugees are stripped of all of their possessions before they are returned to Bosnia. They do not have the possibility to apply for asylum. Time and again, NGOs, activists and journalists have confirmed these reports. This practice at Croatia’s borders violates European law and the European Convention on Human Rights. Despite overwhelming evidence, authorities continue to deny all knowledge of it, and so it persists undeterred. The EU, meanwhile, continues to support Croatia as well. To finally hold the country accountable, three Syrians, ECCHR and PRO ASYL filed a complaint against Croatia with the European Court of Human Rights in April 2019. SB, AA and AB (names withheld for the applicants’ protection) were repeatedly detained, beaten and pushed back to Bosnia by Croatian border guards. In March 2020, the court transmitted the case to the Croatian government, which responded in February 2021. ECCHR will send its reply to the ECtHR.

This practice at Croatia’s borders violates European law

In December 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee transmitted a different complaint to Croatia. The applicant is a Syrian who was also repeatedly mistreated by Croatian border guards and pushed back to Bosnia with other refugees. With ECCHR’s support, he filed a complaint with the UN body demanding Croatia’s push-back practice be denounced.

39 MIGRATION The “Seehofer Deal” Germany’s illegal agreement with Greece

Illegal forced returns do not only occur at Europe’s external borders, but also at the German-Austrian border. Under an administrative agreement between Germany and Greece signed in summer 2018, entry to Germany is refused to people who arrive via Austria and have previously made an asylum application in Greece. Instead, they are detained and deported to Greece within 48 hours. They do not have the opportunity to apply for international protection or present their reasons for fleeing to Germany, and they are denied a legal examination of their removal in an expedited procedure. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is responsible for this agreement, which not only ignores the Dublin Regulation system that determines which European state is responsible for carrying out an individual’s asylum procedure, but also bypasses the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights. In practice, this means asylum seekers are forcibly returned to Greece despite its dysfunctional asylum system and well-documented degrading living conditions there.

Regulations are ignored, human rights standards bypassed

This became reality for Syrian asylum seeker HT (name withheld for the applicant’s protection), who arrived in Germany in September 2018. After entering the country, he was stopped by the police in Bavaria and arrested. Without the possibility to apply for asylum or access a legal remedy, he was forcibly returned by plane to Athens. As soon as he arrived, the Greek authorities detained him for months in order to deport him to Turkey. In March 2019, HT filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg with the support of the Greek Refugee Council. In October 2020, ECCHR, PRO ASYL and the Greek organization Refugee Support Aegean filed a third-party intervention with the ECtHR arguing that Germany must adhere to binding human rights standards and must not, like other states, deny refugees the protections to which they are entitled. Refugees and migrants must have access to justice—everywhere.

40 MIGRATION Bridging the child gap

CLAIRE TIXEIRE Outrage at injustice is felt all the more documented or not is irrelevant; states must keenly when children are the victims. We actively assess the “best interests” of the child; all know that children bear a real, extra and children cannot be returned to a country layer of vulnerability. Children are where they risk irreparable harm. Spain confronted with established systems that was ordered to compensate DD and to amend are fundamentally adult-centered. They its laws and take action to prevent similar are directly dependent on adults’ actions violations. To this day, it has done none of and inactions. This vulnerability is these things. increased further when combined with the What it takes from ECCHR’s side now is to omnipresent discrimination of race, gender, work towards the implementation of such class, immigration status or disability. decisions, to continue to bring new claims While human rights law provides for the right and to build on international solidarity. We of children to have rights, these are seldom needed a network of prominent academics, implemented on the ground. At the EU’s practitioners and activists to further child external borders, for example, where policies rights litigation. 2020 marked its creation. focus on violent deterrence and fortification, Thanks to a partnership between the Global children pay the price for this gap. Campus of Human Rights and the Right Livelihood Foundation, the Advancing Child Rights Strategic Litigation project was Human rights law launched, coordinated by the University of provides for the right of Nottingham, of which ECCHR is a partner. children to have rights Its goal is to strengthen the capacity of such litigation to uphold child rights globally. DD (name withheld for the applicant’s As rightly put by Jacqueline Bhabha, when protection), was a 14-year-old unaccompanied it comes to child rights, “without this active minor from Mali when he set foot on Spanish engagement of concerned outsiders … soil in the Melilla enclave. Upon arrival, the right to have rights that Hannah Arendt no one wanted to hear about his age, identity famously described, becomes illusory.” or circumstances. Instead, border guards CLAIRE TIXEIRE IS A SENIOR LEGAL handcuffed him and immediately pushed him ADVISOR WITH ECCHR’S INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION, WHERE SHE HEADS THE back to Morocco—a routine practice towards CRITICAL LEGAL TRAINING PROGRAM. ECCHR HAS CONDUCTED CHILD RIGHTS LITIGATION sub-Saharan migrants at that land border. WITH A FOCUS ON MIGRATION SINCE 2014. ECCHR and Fundacion Raíces supported DD in filing a complaint to theUN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The committee responded with a damning decision against Spain in February 2019. It ruled that the Convention on the Rights of the Child does apply at borders; whether a child is

41

Institute for Legal Intervention I V . USING AND CHANGING TH E LAW

Whether someone receives justice in court still often depends on factors like where they come from, their gender, race or ability to wield influence. This is why ECCHR’s work goes beyond individual legal cases. We aim to disrupt unjust power structures, initiate social and (legal) policy debates, and thus contribute to struggles for social justice. Our work entails more than merely applying current law. The Institute for Legal Intervention critically examines, contextualizes and attempts to change the law by cooperating with artists and research institutions, as well as working with and critically training human rights defenders.

Donate now CHANGING THE LAW.

NOT ONLY IN COURT, BUT ALSO IN SOCIETY. WE INITIATE ACADEMIC AND LEGAL POLICY DEBATES, COOPERATE WITH ARTISTS, AND CRITICALLY EDUCATE FUTURE HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS.

ECCHR.EU/DONATE INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION The law must be decolonized Reckoning with historical injustices

Many fundamental principles of international law are based on European ideas. They were established by force during colonization; racial theories were developed to justify colonial violence. Today, international law continues to facilitate exploitation and inequality in many ways. After all, who has access to justice? Often those with financial resources. And are legal language and norms today capable of addressing colonial crimes when they were established to justify colonial genocides, thus making these crimes possible in the first place? In order to make law more just, we must decolonize it. With this in mind, the anthology Dekoloniale Rechtskritik und Rechtspraxis (Nomos Verlag), edited by Karina Theurer, director of the Institute for Legal Intervention, and Wolfgang Kaleck, ECCHR’s general secretary, was published in September 2020. The book collects fundamental texts on decolonial legal theory in German translation for the first time, supplemented by practicalreflections by activists and lawyers. In so doing, it harnesses the transformative potential of combining both theory and practice.

Access to justice depends on resources

Colonial injustice should not just be discussed by experts, as Morten Bergsmo, Wolfgang Kaleck and Kyaw Yin Hlaing underline in their anthology Colonial wrongs and access to international law (Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, 2020). Lawyers have a special responsibility to address colonialism and its legal history in order to understand and counteract its consequences today, writes Kaleck. The law must be changed and decolonized. This will transform it from a tool of the powerful to a means of emancipation for those affected by prevailing unjust conditions.

45 INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION With ownership comes responsibility—especially for vital medicines

MIRIAM SAAGE-MAASS, FLORENCE STÜRMER & KARINA THEURER The knowledge needed to produce important What concrete solutions would result from medicines is essential, especially in times a decolonial approach to international patent of COVID-19. Access to this knowledge must law? Indigenous and local research must therefore be guaranteed worldwide. From be recognized. It has, after all, contributed a legal perspective, we must weigh the significantly to the search for treatment and protection of intellectual property, secured vaccines in non-Western scientific systems by patents, against the public interest with fewer resources. In addition, a patent and human rights to life and health. Thus, pool could be established at the World it must follow that with ownership comes Health Organization that would centrally responsibility, also with regard to intellectual collect information on active ingredients property. Decolonizing patent law can help and treatments for serious diseases—such as us find a fair balance between property rights COVID-19. Open to all, such a pool would and human rights. Because only through particularly benefit countries in the Global the brutal colonization of large parts of the South, giving them the opportunity to produce world did the European idea of an exclusive affordable medicines unhindered by patents patent system spread at all. and fulfill their obligation to guarantee the human right to health. The international patent system in force today is disturbingly unbalanced. Medico THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED UNABRIDGED IN GERMAN IN THE FRANKFURTER international reports that two billion people RUNDSCHAU ON 20 OCTOBER 2020. MIRIAM SAAGE-MAASS HEADS ECCHR’S BUSINESS worldwide have no access to essential AND HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRAM. FLORENCE STÜRMER WORKS IN THE INSTITUTE FOR medicines. This is because they are too LEGAL INTERVENTION AT ECCHR, WHERE expensive and are not produced for KARINA THEURER IS THE DIRECTOR. “unprofitable” markets. Multinational pharmaceutical companies have the power to set prices. Based on profitability, they decide who is supplied and who is not. The resulting power struggles and dependencies mirror those of colonial times.

46 INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION The murder of Patrice Lumumba Belated justice for colonial crimes?

Although it happened 60 years ago, Patrice Lumumba’s assassination still concerns Africa and Europe today. On 17 January 1961, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was assassinated after a short term in office—with the complicity of international actors, above all the former colonial power . Only a few months earlier, in June 1960, the Republic of the Congo celebrated its independence. Lumumba openly denounced the crimes and racist practices of colonial rule, to the displeasure of foreign powers. It was not until 40 years later that a parliamentary inquiry in Belgium found that Belgian government officials shared responsibility for the murder. However, it held that Belgium was only morally complicit—not legally responsible. In 2011, Lumumba’s son therefore filed criminal charges against eleven Belgian citizens for their involvement in the assassination. ECCHR supports his case. We filed an amicus curiae brief on statutes of limitations in 2011 and another submission in June 2020, arguing that the murder should be assessed as a war crime, even though wars of national liberation were not recognized as international armed conflicts until 1977 in the first Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions. The classification as an international crime is critical to making sure the murder does not go unpunished, because under Belgian law, grave crimes have a 30-year statute of limitations.

One of the last colonial crimes in which those directly involved are still alive

The Lumumba case is one of the last colonial crimes in which those directly involved are still alive and can therefore be held criminally liable. Many colonial era crimes, such as genocide and exploitation, have never been addressed or prosecuted. Yet these crimes continue to resonate—their effects and the structural disadvantages of those affected continue to this day. For years now, an increasing number of people have therefore called for the colonial past to be confronted, including in Belgium.

47 INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION “Any human rights discourse is incomplete without international collaboration”

INTERVIEW WITH ISHA KHANDELWAL You have come to ECCHR three times in What are you currently working different capacities. How and why? on at ECCHR? The first time was for the amazing Bertha As a Humboldt fellow, I research approaches to Women’s Group gathering in 2014, where transitional justice and conflict transformation. I met radical women lawyers from all over Given the absence of remedies to address the world. There, I got a better understanding mass crimes, the idea behind my research is of the kind of work and politics in which to study the practices Germany adopted, ECCHR engages. Since then, I have always taking particular note of what succeeded and wanted to come back. In 2018, I returned as what did not, to effectively address war crimes. a Bertha Global Exchange fellow, and I am also working on some of ECCHR’s in 2020, I came again as an Alexander von current cases to understand and learn from Humboldt German Chancellor fellow. the organization’s strategic litigation practices. What do you research? What do you see How does your time at ECCHR affect as the most pressing topic right now? your work back in India? I have studied the Indian criminal justice My work at ECCHR exposes me to the system from close quarters through my work innovative strategies it uses to work towards on issues like false incarceration, extrajudicial accountability. The vibrant and political space killings and sexual violence in the Indian has also introduced me to the amazing work Chhattisgarh conflict area. The Indian judicial of many movements and organizations system has historically failed to provide any around the world—which has been motivating semblance of justice. Rather, it has contributed on a more personal level. Any discourse or to a culture of impunity that we are still even understanding of “human rights” is witnessing currently. The courts have become incomplete without international collaboration. increasingly pliant to the current government, It is important that voices from and the gaze which uses them as a tool. The rise of of the Global South are not just involved, Hindu right-wing politics and the ongoing but also dominate this discourse to change destruction of judicial institutions are some of the power imbalance that presently exists. the many pressing issues in India right now. ISHA KHANDELWAL IS A LAWYER AND COFOUNDER OF THE INDIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION JAGDALPUR LEGAL AID GROUP. IN FALL 2020, SHE JOINED ECCHR AS AN ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT FOUNDATION GERMAN CHANCELLOR FELLOW. SHE WAS A BERTHA GLOBAL EXCHANGE FELLOW AT ECCHR IN 2018/19.

48 INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION Staying connected ECCHR’s network in the time of COVID-19

The year 2020 was a dramatic reminder of how important connectedness is—not just for our work, but for our well-being. ECCHR’s global network is our strength. It allows us to work across borders, disciplines and generations. Around 400 human rights practitioners from over 40 countries now make up our diverse alumn* community. As participants of Critical Legal Training, Bertha Global Exchange and Justice fellows, or staff members, they have all been part of ECCHR, and will remain so as alumn*. Our network helps us foster momentum and develop creative approaches to human rights work, and enables us to keep up with and make new friends.

Our global network is our strength

In light of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we hosted the annual ECCHR Alumn* Reunion digitally for the first time. It included discussions, an exclusive film screening of “Discount Workers” directed by ECCHR alumnus Christopher Patz and Ammar Aziz, and live illustrations by Yorgos Konstantinou. More than 100 alumn*, staff, board members and external guests talked about the future of human rights and met with old friends and new members of the ECCHR family. We discussed strategic litigation as a tool for climate justice, the dominance of multinational corporations, and legal work against police violence and discrimination. Wolfgang Kaleck and ECCHR’s Advisory Board ended the reunion with a conversation about global solidarity in the time of the pandemic. To stay even more connected in the future, we also redesigned the ECCHR CONNECT online platform in November 2020. It now offers our alumn* and staff the opportunity to stay in touch, jointly develop ideas for human rights work, share knowledge and support one another—all in the spirit of global solidarity.

49 INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION The unexpected internship

ADRIAN BORNMANN On 1 April 2020, the first day of my internship And working from home, it turns out, can be at ECCHR, it was already clear that my fun, as in our online improv sessions. A few time here would be different from those who Skype calls and Zoom meetings into my came before me. In February 2020, I applied internship, my nervousness began to subside. for an internship in ECCHR’s Media and Critical Legal Training was organized Communications department. At the time, the similarly. Its leaders Claire Tixeire and Marie coronavirus still felt far away from Berlin. Badarne connected trainees digitally with As a communications intern, I also took part virtual coffee breaks and critical reading in Critical Legal Training, ECCHR’s debriefs. We would all have preferred to educational program for lawyers and human be able to attend sessions under normal rights activists. But how could this take place circumstances, but staying home during this when work was forced to move within one’s time was an act of solidarity. And discussing own four walls? Over the next three months, topics like the revolutionary history of the I experienced ECCHR’s first physically 1 May in front of your screen with a coffee distanced and predominantly digital Critical in hand is definitely a privileged way to wait Legal Training. out a pandemic. Marie and Claire did their best to make the time as educational and enjoyable as possible. And in this way, despite Staying home during the coronavirus pandemic, I had an inspiring, this time was exciting time at ECCHR. an act of solidarity One thing is for sure: ECCHR’s spring 2020 trainees definitely have a high level of media Before my first day, I was given digital access competence. That surely cannot hurt for to my ECCHR computer and told to work creative human rights work. from home for the time being. It was a weird ADRIAN BORNMANN WAS AN INTERN IN feeling to start an internship without sitting ECCHR’S MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT FROM APRIL TO JUNE in the same room as my team—I was nervous. 2020. HE REJOINED ECCHR IN JULY 2020 AS A WORKING STUDENT. However, digital networking made it easier for me to get started. In my department, for example, a whole collection of channels was set up to ensure that information would not get lost between home offices. Video calls, messenger apps, chat programs, emails and phone calls proved that when there is a will, there is a way, even in times of COVID-19.

50 INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION Selected activities

TRAINEE MEETINGS LUNCH TALKS “ICC communication on “Human rights activism European arms in Yemen” in times of COVID-19” Presentation: Laura Duarte Reyes Andreas Wulf (physician, medico international Berlin office) “Reflections on the intertwining Moderation: Damia Taharraoui, of social entrepreneurship Gwinyai Machona and strategic litigation” “The ECtHR and the Kurdish conflict” Presentation: Simon Simanovski Dilek Kurban (Marie-Curie-Fellow, Hertie School of Governance) “Frontex—The accountability conundrum” Moderation: Sarah Lupi, Rojda Tosun Presentation: Nora Ebeling, Abby d’Arcy HUMAN RIGHTS CINEMA “Rights of intersex people and “For Sama,” followed by a discussion the inhumane treatment they face” with director Waad al-Kateab and lawyer Joumana Seif (ECCHR) Presentation: Son Olszewski Moderation: Damia Taharraoui “The benevolent dictator—An introduction to the concept and postcolonial perspectives on democracy and human rights” WORKSHOP Presentation: Ann-Charlotte Stürzel “Techniques, tools and safety tips for digital investigations” Laura Ranca, Wael Eskandar (Tactical Tech) READING DEBRIEFS “On international lawyers and social movements: Possibilities for transformation and resistance” Moderation: Claire Tixeire

“Gender, cultures and religion” Moderation: Luxcy Alex Lambert

51

Appendix V . PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

NORTH AMERICA · American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) NEW YORK · Activist Anthropologists DAKAR · Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) NEW YORK · Baldia Factory Fire Affectees Association KARACHI · Center for Justice & Accountability SAN FRANCISCO · Legal Aid and DAKAR · Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Service Trust (BLAST) Agustín Pro Juárez MEXICO CITY · Center for International Law (CenterLaw) MANILA · City University of New York NEW YORK 1 · Foundation for Fundamental Rights ISLAMABAD · Earth Rights International WASHINGTON, DC · Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) NEW DELHI · Global Justice Center NEW YORK · Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas MANILA · Magnum Foundation NEW YORK · Lawyers Beyond Borders, India Chapter TAMIL NADU · Open Society Justice Initiative NEW YORK · Maharashtra Association of Pesticide YAVATMAL · PILnet NEW YORK Poisoned Persons (MAPPP) PAMPANGA · Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, · Malaya Lolas Organization Sociales y Culturales (ProDESC) MEXICO CITY · Michael Sfard Law Office TEL AVIV · Syria Justice and Accountability Center WASHINGTON, DC · Mwatana for Human Rights SANAA · Urnammu QUEBEC CITY · National Trade Union Federation of Pakistan (NTUF) KARACHI CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA · Nariphokko DAKAR · ANDHES TUCUMÁN · Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) KARACHI · Articulacão Internacional dos Atingidos GAZA CITY e Atingidas pela Vale (AIApV) RIO DE JANEIRO · Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) · Associação Comunitária da Jangada (ACJ) BRUMADINHO · Pesticide Action Network Asia-Pacific (PAN-AP) and PAN India PENANG/KERALA · Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI)/ Institute for Justice & Democracy PORT-AU-PRINCE/BOSTON · Rasheed Razvi Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (RCCHR) KARACHI/LAHORE · Centro de Estudios Legales GAZIANTEP y Sociales (CELS) BUENOS AIRES · Syrian Women’s Network · Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (CCAJAR) BOGOTÁ EUROPE · Instituto de Defensa Legal LIMA · Airwars LONDON · International Network of Civil Liberties · Akademie der Künste BERLIN BUENOS AIRES Organizations (INCLO) · Amnesty International LONDON · La Unión de Afectados por · Amnesty International Deutschland BERLIN Chevron-Texaco (UDAPT) QUITO · ask! Arbeitsgruppe Schweiz-Kolumbien BERN · Associazione per gli Studi Giudici AFRICA sull’immigrazione (ASGI) ROME/MILAN · Association Marocaine des Droits · Bahrain Centre for Human Rights BERLIN NADOR de l’Homme (AMDH) · Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy LONDON JOHANNESBURG · Center for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) · Berlin Information Center · Equal Education Law Centre (EELC) CAPE TOWN for Transatlantic Security (BITS) BERLIN · Legal Resources Centre JOHANNESBURG · borderline-europe BERLIN · Ovaherero Genocide Foundation WINDHOEK · Brot für die Welt BERLIN · Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) JOHANNESBURG · Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung BONN · Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) LONDON · Caesar Files Group BERLIN · Campaign Against Arms Trade LONDON · CCFD-Terre Solidaire PARIS

1 IN 2020, WOLFGANG KALECK WAS A SCHOLAR-IN- RESIDENCE AT THE SORENSEN CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND JUSTICE AT THE CUNY SCHOOL OF LAW · Center for International Law Research · Initiative Lieferkettengesetz BERLIN BRUSSELS/BERLIN and Policy (CILRAP) · Internationale Akademie Nürnberger · Center for Legal Aid—Voice in SOFIA Prinzipien NUREMBERG · Centre Delàs BARCELONA · Lawyers for Justice in (LFJL) LONDON · Centre for Research on Multinational · LGBT Network SAINT PETERSBURG AMSTERDAM Corporations (SOMO) · Macedonian Young Lawyers · Centre for the Enforcement of Human Association (MYLA) SKOPJE VIENNA Rights International (CEHRI) · Medica Mondiale COLOGNE STOCKHOLM · Civil Rights Defenders · medico international FRANKFURT AM MAIN GENEVA · Civitas Maxima · MISEREOR AACHEN · Clean Clothes Campaign/Kampagne · Movimento Consumatori ROME für saubere Kleidung AMSTERDAM/WUPPERTAL · Moving Europe · Coalition Against Arms Trade (CAAT) LONDON · Multiwatch BERN · Coalizione Italiana Libertá e Diritti civili (CILD) MILAN · Norwegian Helsinki Committee OSLO · Comité catholique contre la faim · Nürnberger Menschenrechtszentrum NUREMBERG et pour le développement (CCFD) PARIS · Observatori DESC BARCELONA · Commission for International Justice · PAX UTRECHT and Accountability (CIJA) · Postkolonial e.V. BERLIN · Deutsche Menschenrechtskoordination FRANKFURT AM MAIN Mexiko STUTTGART · PRO ASYL ZURICH · EuroMed Rights COPENHAGEN · Public Eye LONDON · European Coalition of Corporate Justice BRUSSELS · REDRESS CHIOS · European Forum on Armed Drones UTRECHT · Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) BERLIN · Federación Andalucía Acoge SEVILLA · Reporter ohne Grenzen LONDON · Fédération Internationale de Ligues des · Reprieve Droits de l’Homme (FIDH) PARIS · Republikanischer Anwältinnen- und BERLIN · FoodFirst Informations- Anwälteverein (R AV) & Aktions-Netzwerk (FIAN) COLOGNE · Rete Italiana per il Disarmo ROME · Forensic Architecture LONDON · RüstungsinformationsBüro (RIB) FREIBURG · Forschungs- und Informationszentrum · Saferworld LONDON -Lateinamerika (FDCL) BERLIN · Sherpa PARIS · Forum for International Criminal and · Sri Lanka Advocacy Group BRUSSELS Humanitarian Law (FICHL) · Syrian Archive BERLIN BREMEN · Freiheit für Westsahara · Syrian Center for Legal Studies and · Fundación Raíces MADRID Research (SCLSR) BERLIN · Germanwatch BONN/BERLIN · Syrian Center for Media and Freedom · Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) GALWAY/LONDON of Expression (SCM) PARIS/BERLIN · Global Campus of Human Rights VIENNA · Tactical Tech BERLIN · Goethe-Institut MUNICH · Transitional Justice Clinic THE HAGUE · Goldsmiths, University of London LONDON · TRIAL International GENEVA · Hafiza Merkezi (Truth Justice Memory Center) ISTANBUL · Voix des Migrants BERLIN · HIAS in Greece ATHENS/LESBOS · Western Resource Watch LONDON · HumanRights360 ATHENS · Women Now For Development PARIS · Human Rights Institute, · Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice THE HAGUE La Universidad de Deusto BILBAO · Women’s League for International · Human Rights Law Centre, Peace and Freedom GENEVA University of Nottingham NOTTINGHAM · Zentrum ÜBERLEBEN BERLIN · Human Rights Watch (HRW) BRUSSELS/BERLIN

PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS IN THE BERTHA JUSTICE INITIATIVE LEGAL INTERVENTIONS

INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AND Germany ACCOUNTABILITY Airstrike in Gaza Submission of further evidence in the Afghanistan investigation of an Israeli military airstrike in German airstrike in Kunduz Gaza that killed members of the Kilani family. SUBMITTED: 10 SEPTEMBER 2020 Oral argument in the hearing of the case FEDERAL PUBLIC PROSECUTOR, GERMANY concerning the German Armed Forces’ airstrike near Kunduz on 4 September 2009. Germany HEARING: 26 FEBRUARY 2020 GRAND CHAMBER OF THE EUROPEAN COURT Crimes during the Argentine OF HUMAN RIGHTS, FRANCE military dictatorship Submission in the investigation of the Austria German citizen Luis K, who was allegedly Torture in Syria involved in crimes committed during Application of a Syrian torture survivor the Argentine dictatorship. to become a joint plaintiff in the case SUBMITTED: 16 SEPTEMBER 2020 through an ECCHR partner lawyer. BERLIN PUBLIC PROSECUTOR, GERMANY SUBMITTED: 16 MARCH 2020 VIENNA PUBLIC PROSECUTOR, AUSTRIA Crimes against humanity Germany Proposal of benchmarks for evaluating the Sexual and gender-based violence in Syria ICC’s preliminary examination on Colombia. Criminal complaint on behalf of seven Syrian SUBMITTED: 30 SEPTEMBER 2020 plaintiffs regarding sexual and gender-based INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, violence committed in Syrian Air Force Intelligence detention facilities as a crime against humanity. Sexual slavery during World War II SUBMITTED: 18 JUNE 2020 Response on behalf of 28 survivors FEDERAL PUBLIC PROSECUTOR, GERMANY of sexual slavery to the government of the Philippine’s submission. Germany SUBMITTED: 5 OCTOBER 2020 Access to information—Al-Khatib trial UN COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN, SWITZERLAND Support of a constitutional complaint filed by journalist Mansour al-Omari and Germany a representative of the Syrian Justice and Armed drones and US Air Base Ramstein Accountability Center through ECCHR Representation of three Yemeni nationals partner lawyers to grant Arabic-speaking in appeal proceedings on the use of the journalists access to the trial’s simultaneous airbase Ramstein in Germany for US drone Arabic interpretation. strikes in Yemen. SUBMITTED: 3 AUGUST 2020 FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL COURT, GERMANY PREPARATORY SUBMISSION: 4 NOVEMBER 2020 HEARING: 27 NOVEMBER 2020 FEDERAL ADMINISTRATIVE COURT, GERMANY

56 APPENDIX

Italy Italy Armed drones and US Naval Arms exports and social rights Air Station Sigonella Submission on the impact of Italian Appeal of the Regional Administrative arms exports on economic, social and Tribunal’s decision in the freedom of cultural rights in conflict regions. information act litigation regarding armed SUBMITTED: 13 MARCH 2020 UN COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL drones and the US Naval Air Station AND CULTURAL RIGHTS, SWITZERLAND Sigonella in Sicily. SUBMITTED: 11 NOVEMBER 2020 Germany SUPREME ADMINISTRATIVE COURT, ITALY Public investment in agribusiness Germany Request for access to information on the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau’s Crimes against humanity in Syria— environmental and social action plan Al-Khatib trial with the agricultural company Paraguay Support of a motion by ECCHR partner Agriculture Cooperation. lawyers to expand the charges against Anwar SUBMITTED: 9 SEPTEMBER 2020 R to include rape and sexual coercion as KREDITANSTALT FÜR WIEDERAUFBAU, GERMANY part of the alleged crimes against humanity. SUBMITTED: 19 NOVEMBER 2020 Switzerland KOBLENZ HIGHER REGIONAL COURT, GERMANY Pesticide poisoning in India Civil lawsuit by three Indian farmers against Swiss pesticide manufacturer Syngenta BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS for compensation for deceased relatives and severe damage to health. Europe SUBMITTED: 18 SEPTEMBER 2020 BASEL-STADT CANTON CIVIL COURT, ARBITRATION European human rights due diligence law AUTHORITY, SWITZERLAND Study on corporate human rights due diligence in global supply chains. and SUBMITTED: 24 FEBRUARY 2020 OECD complaint against Syngenta EUROPEAN COMMISSION, BELGIUM by 51 affected families, together with partner organizations. Germany SUBMITTED: 18 SEPTEMBER 2020 SWISS NATIONAL CONTACT POINT FOR Arms exports and women’s rights THE OECD GUIDELINES FOR Joint submission on the impact of MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES, SWITZERLAND German arms exports on women’s rights in conflict regions. France SUBMITTED: 27 FEBRUARY 2020 Wind farms in Mexico UN COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN, SWITZERLAND Civil lawsuit by four members of the Unión Hidalgo indigenous community against the French energy company EDF to respect indigenous rights in a wind park project in Mexico. SUBMITTED: 13 OCTOBER 2020 PARIS CIVIL COURT, FRANCE

57 APPENDIX

Argentina Croatia Corporate involvement in Push-backs to military dictatorship crimes Additional submissions on the complaints Amicus curiae brief on historical and of three Syrians, one of whom is a minor, international standards relating to regarding their collective and violent corporate aiding and abetting of crimes expulsion to Bosnia and Herzegovina in under international law. October 2018. SUBMITTED: 3 DECEMBER 2020 SUBMITTED: 16 OCTOBER 2020 FEDERAL CRIMINAL COURT, ARGENTINA EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, FRANCE

and Individual complaint by a Syrian against MIGRATION Croatia for six push-backs to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the fall/winter of 2018/19. Italy SUBMITTED: 11 DECEMBER 2020 Sea rescue criminalization—Sea-Watch 3 UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE, SWITZERLAND Letter of complaint about Italian authorities’ criminalization of rescue at sea. Germany SUBMITTED: 29 JANUARY 2020 Push-backs under the Seehofer Deal UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE SITUATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS, SWITZERLAND Third-party intervention in the case of a Syrian who appealed his expulsion North Macedonia at the German border with Austria and Push-backs to Greece immediate deportation to Greece. SUBMITTED: 2 NOVEMBER 2020 Additional submissions on the complaints of EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, FRANCE eight people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan regarding their collective expulsion to Greece. SUBMITTED: 24 AUGUST 2020 EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, FRANCE

Europe Frontex’s participation in push-backs in Croatia Request for access to Frontex documents on its deployment at the Croatian border. SUBMITTED: 30 SEPTEMBER 2020 EUROPEAN BORDER AND COAST GUARD AGENCY (FRONTEX),

58 APPENDIX

INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION

Belgium The Lumumba case Amicus curiae brief in the case of Belgian nationals’ alleged aiding and abetting of Patrice Lumumba’s murder in 1963, focusing on crimes under international law and decolonization. SUBMITTED: 30 JUNE 2020 BRUSSELS PUBLIC PROSECUTOR, BELGIUM

Germany Genocide in Namibia Submission on the disregard of the Ovahero and Nama’s right to participate in the German and Namibian intergovernmental negotiations on the 1904–08 genocide and discussion of possible reparations. SUBMITTED: 31 OCTOBER 2020 UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE PROMOTION OF TRUTH, JUSTICE, REPARATION AND GUARANTEES OF NON- RECURRENCE, SWITZERLAND

59 CURRENT CASES AND PROJECTS

INTERNATIONAL CRIMES Germany AND ACCOUNTABILITY ECtHR complaint on airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan Austria In September 2009, a German army colonel Assad intelligence officials under investigation ordered US fighter jets to bomb two tanker Austrian authorities are investigating trucks and a large group of people near systematic torture in Syria. Together with 16 Kunduz. ECCHR supported the case of Abdul Syrian survivors and Syrian and Austrian Hanan, whose two sons (aged 8 and 12) died partners, ECCHR filed a criminal complaint in the strike. In February 2020, the Grand against 36 high-ranking Assad government Chamber of the European Court of Human officials in 2018. Rights heard the case. In February 2021, the court ruled: Germany made mistakes, but TORTURE ultimately did enough to review the case.

WAR CRIMES France Investigations into torture at Guantánamo Since 2002, two former French Guantánamo Germany detainees have been fighting to ensure that First trial worldwide on state senior US officials are held accountable torture under President Assad for torture at the US military prison in Cuba. In April 2020, the world’s first trial on state ECCHR is assisting the two men in the torture in Syria began in Koblenz, Germany. proceedings and has submitted several The case deals with two former officials of dossiers on suspects in the case. In December Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s General 2019, the French appeals court confirmed Intelligence Directorate, Anwar R and the case’s closure. The men are now appealing Eyad A. ECCHR supports Syrian torture to France’s Supreme Court. survivors, who are witnesses and joint plaintiffs in the proceedings. TORTURE TORTURE

Germany Crimes in Colonia Dignidad Germany The German sect Colonia Dignidad in Chile Germany must prosecute Argentine saw years of grave human rights violations. dictatorship criminals ECCHR supports affected people’s struggle The Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office should to hold two former leading members of the investigate Luis K, a former Argentine officer, sect to account in Germany. In spring 2019, who allegedly participated in crimes against however, public prosecutors in Münster and humanity during the military dictatorship. Krefeld closed their investigations. An appeal Because he faced imprisonment in Argentina, was dismissed in December 2020. ECCHR he fled to Germany in2013 . ECCHR supports has now filed a disciplinary complaint. Those the sister of a “disappeared” Argentine. affected also submitted a request for legal REPRESSION examination.

REPRESSION

60 APPENDIX

Germany Germany International arrest warrant for former War crimes during the Syrian Intelligence Chief Jamil Hassan Sri Lankan civil war In June 2018, the German Federal Court of There have been no effective legal Justice issued an international arrest warrant proceedings to date addressing crimes against former Head of the Syrian Air Force committed during the Sri Lankan civil Intelligence Service Jamil Hassan. The war (1983–2009). ECCHR seeks to initiate warrant is the result, among others, of four appropriate criminal investigations into criminal complaints that ECCHR submitted high-ranking military officers’ criminal with 24 torture survivors against senior responsibility for war crimes, crimes against Assad government officials. humanity and sexual violence, e.g. on the TORTURE basis of universal jurisdiction. WAR CRIMES

Germany Ramstein Air Base and US drone strikes Germany In summer 2012, a US drone strike in Yemen War crimes in Gaza killed two members of the bin Ali Jaber family. Members of the German-Palestinian Kilani The US Ramstein Air Base in Germany family were killed in an Israeli airstrike played a role in the strike. Because it allowed on Gaza City in July 2014. Israeli authorities the US to use Ramstein for drone strikes, three failed to examine the case. Having filed a Yemenis sued the German government with criminal complaint with the German federal ECCHR’s support. In March 2019, the Higher public prosecutor, family members and Administrative Court in Münster, Germany, ECCHR continue to call on Germany to found in favor of the Yemeni claimants on key investigate. points. But in November 2020, the Federal WAR CRIMES Administrative Court in Leipzig overturned the ruling. ECCHR is now preparing a constitutional complaint. Italy DRONE STRIKES Naval Air Station Sigonella’s role in the US drone program Armed US drones are stationed at Sigonella Germany Naval Air Station in Sicily and deployed in Sexual violence by Syrian intelligence military operations. The agreement between services is a crime against humanity the US and Italy about the presence of the The German justice system should prosecute drones and rules for their deployment have sexual and gender-based violence in Syrian not been made public. ECCHR filed a freedom detention centers for what it is: a crime against of information act request to reveal this humanity. That is the goal of a criminal information. In October 2019, the Italian complaint that seven Syrian survivors of Supreme Administrative Court decided that Assad’s torture system, supported by ECCHR the dispute over the release of information and partners, filed with the German federal by the Italian Ministry of Defense will again public prosecutor in June 2020. be investigated in court.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE DRONE STRIKES

61 APPENDIX

Norway United Kingdom Syrian torture survivors demand justice Torture by British military in Iraq To end impunity for Syrian state torture, five British military and government decision- survivors from Syria and ECCHR filed makers must be held accountable for UK a criminal complaint in Norway. It focuses torture in Iraq. ECCHR has filed multiple on 17 high-ranking intelligence and military communications to the International Criminal officers who were directly involved in or Court documenting numerous allegations of ordered torture, rape and murder. abuse of former Iraqi detainees. Nevertheless, TORTURE the ICC Office of the Prosecutor closed preliminary investigations in December 2020. TORTURE Philippines Sexual violence in World War II During World War II, women in the USA Philippines were sexually enslaved by orders Criminal complaint against of the Japanese military. ECCHR and Filipino CIA Director Gina Haspel partners submitted a complaint to the UN ECCHR is calling on the German federal in 2019 demanding the Philippines support public prosecutor to investigate former CIA members of the Malaya Lolas survivors’ Director Gina Haspel. The prosecutor organization in their fight for compensation should examine Haspel’s role in the torture, from . including waterboarding, of detainees in

SEXUAL VIOLENCE a secret CIA prison in Thailand. TORTURE

Sweden Europe’s role in fighting impunity for torture in Syria Following criminal complaints in Germany BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS and Austria, nine witnesses, along with ECCHR and Syrian and Swedish partners, Argentina filed a similar complaint against senior Syrian Mercedes Benz Argentina’s role in military government officials in Sweden in February dictatorship crimes 2019. They are accused of committing and ECCHR demands an investigation into a ordering torture, war crimes and crimes Mercedes Benz employee who worked in against humanity. An investigation is ongoing. a factory near Buenos Aires and was allegedly complicit in the enforced disappearance TORTURE and murder of trade unionists during the Argentine military dictatorship. Argentine companies Ledesma and Minera Aguilar face similar allegations.

CORPORATIONS + REPRESSIVE REGIMES

62 APPENDIX

Brazil France VW do Brasil’s role in military Wind parks in Mexico dictatorship crimes The French company Electricité de France Since its establishment, ECCHR has has been working on the Gunaa Sicarú wind investigated corporate collaboration in park project in Mexico since 2015. Turbines military dictatorship crimes, such as are to be built on Unión Hidalgo territory, those in Brazil. Since 2017, ECCHR has but the indigenous community has not been supported the case of persecuted trade sufficiently consulted. Unión Hidalgo unionists who worked at VW do Brasil. representatives, ProDESC and ECCHR filed

CORPORATIONS + REPRESSIVE REGIMES a civil lawsuit under the French Duty of Vigilance Law in October 2020. EDF should stop the project until human rights standards are met. Europe ICC communication about corporate RESOURCE EXPLOITATION complicity in the Yemen war ECCHR and international partner organizations submitted a communication Germany to the International Criminal Court in Heckler & Koch arms exports to Mexico December 2019 to clarify corporate and state The German company Heckler & Koch actors’ responsibility for alleged war supplied assault rifles to police in the Mexican crimes in Yemen. It focused on weapons state of Guerrero in 2008–09. The weapons manufacturers from France, Germany, Italy, were allegedly used to shoot 43 Ayotzinapa Spain and the UK, including Airbus, college students in 2014. In February 2019, Leonardo and Rheinmetall. the Stuttgart Regional Court sentenced two

ARMS + SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY former Heckler & Koch employees for fraudulently obtaining export licenses. In February 2021, the appeal hearing began at the German Federal Court of Justice. France ECCHR supports the family of a victim that Lafarge on trial for doing business was not allowed to join the proceedings. with armed groups in Syria French courts are investigating the Lafarge ARMS + SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY cement company and its executives for financing terrorism and endangering the lives of its workers. Former Syrian employees filed criminal charges with ECCHR’s support in 2016. The company is accused of complicity in war crimes and colluding with IS to maintain operations. The French Supreme Court will hear the case of alleged complicity in war crimes in 2021.

CORPORATIONS + REPRESSIVE REGIMES

63 APPENDIX

Germany Italy Spyware “made in Germany” European arms manufacturers’ for Turkish authorities? role in war crimes in Yemen The Munich-based companies FinFisher, In August 2016, a Saudi Arabia and UAE-led FinFisher Labs and Elaman are suspected of coalition airstrike killed a pregnant woman selling spy software to Turkish authorities and her four children in northern Yemen. without an export license from the German ECCHR and partners from Yemen and Italy government. Following a criminal complaint filed a criminal complaint in Rome in 2018 to by ECCHR and partner organizations establish the shared liability of RWM Italia— GFF, RSF Germany and netzpolitik, the a subsidiary of German arms manufacturer Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office opened Rheinmetall—and Italian export authorities. investigations in August 2019. In October In October 2019, the Public Prosecutor’s Office 2020, it searched several offices of the requested the case be dismissed. However, conglomerate in Germany and Romania. the competent court granted ECCHR’s appeal

ARMS + SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY and is continuing the investigation. ARMS + SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY

Germany TÜV SÜD’s role in the Italy Brumadinho dam failure RINA’s joint responsibility The January 2019 dam breach near for factory fire deaths in Pakistan Brumadinho, Brazil, killed 272 people. Only The Italian certification companyRINA four months earlier, German certifier TÜV awarded the Ali Enterprises factory in SÜD’s Brazilian subsidiary declared the Pakistan a safety certificate. Three weeks dam stable. To clarify TÜV SÜD’s joint later, a fire there killed258 people as a result responsibility, five Brazilians andECCHR of breaches in fire safety.ECCHR supports filed complaints against the certifier those affected and submitted an OECD and one employee with the Munich Public complaint against RINA in 2018. After Prosecutor in October 2019. The Public lengthy negotiations, RINA refused to sign Prosecutor’s Office has initiated investigations. the OECD mediation process agreement

RESOURCE EXPLOITATION in December 2020. GLOBAL PRODUCTION CHAINS

64 APPENDIX

Romania MIGRATION Mining company ignores human rights and environmental law Croatia Residents of Ros¸ia Montana˘, Romania, ECtHR demands answers have been fighting to stop a gold mine’s from Croatian government construction. Canadian-British mining firm For the first time, Croatia must answer the Gabriel Resources sued Romania at an European Court of Human Rights for its international arbitration tribunal. In 2018, push-back practices at its border with Bosnia ECCHR submitted an amicus curiae brief and Herzegovina. In May 2020, the court in support of the residents. Arbitration asked the Croatian government a series of in Washington, DC, is ongoing. questions based on individual complaints RESOURCE EXPLOITATION from three Syrian refugees, whom ECCHR supports. In February 2021, the Croatian government took a position on the matter. Switzerland ECCHR will now respond. Indian victims take action PUSH-BACKS against chemical company Syngenta In Yavatmal, India, hundreds of farmworkers were poisoned in 2017, some severely. Croatia Government documents show that the Swiss Push-backs before the chemical company Syngenta’s pesticide UN Human Rights Committee Polo played an important role. Therefore, A Syrian refugee was repeatedly and three affected persons filed a civil lawsuit violently pushed back at the Croatian border for damages against Syngenta in September with Bosnia and Herzegovina. With 2020 with the support of ECCHR and its ECCHR and PRO ASYL’s support, he filed partners. Another 51 families filed an OECD an individual complaint with the UN complaint against Syngenta in Switzerland. Human Rights Committee, which was PESTICIDES communicated to Croatia in December 2020.

PUSH-BACKS

Germany Deportations under the Seehofer Deal violate the European Convention on Human Rights The so-called Seehofer Deal allows Germany to immediately push-back refugees and migrants who come to Germany via Greece. This happened to Syrian asylum seeker HT. In October 2020, ECCHR and its partners therefore filed a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights.

ASYLUM PROCEDURES

65 APPENDIX

Italy Spain Criminalizing sea rescue I Fatal push-backs at the The Iuventa search and rescue ship has helped Moroccan border (Ceuta) many refugees and migrants in distress in the At least 15 people died in a Guardia Civil Mediterranean Sea. In August 2017, Italian push-back at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta’s authorities seized it, marking the beginning of Moroccan border in February 2014. a targeted campaign to criminalize civilian ECCHR supports two survivors in criminal sea rescue. In November 2019, ECCHR turned proceedings against the Guardia Civil officers. to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation The investigation has been closed three of human rights defenders. She publicly times to date, most recently in October 2019. condemned Italy’s actions in October 2020. ECCHR’s two previous appeals were

SEA RESCUES successful; the third is pending. PUSH-BACKS

Italy Criminalizing sea rescue II Spain Italy systematically criminalizes, threatens Push-backs at the and harasses activists who rescue refugees Moroccan border (Melilla) and migrants in the Mediterranean. In January In February 2020, the Grand Chamber of the 2020, ECCHR filed a complaint with theUN European Court of Human Rights dismissed Special Rapporteur on the situation of human ND and NT’s complaints against Spain. In rights defenders that focused on Sea-Watch 3 2014, the men crossed the Spanish enclave of and its captain Carola Rackete. In October Melilla’s border fence structure into Spanish 2020, the UN expert publicly condemned territory, and were immediately pushed back Italy’s actions against Rackete. to Morocco. With ECCHR’s support, the men

SEA RESCUES filed individual complaints about this to the ECtHR, and were initially granted justice in 2017. North Macedonia PUSH-BACKS Forced returns at the Greek border Eight refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria lodged individual complaints in September 2016 against North Macedonia at the European Court of Human Rights with ECCHR’s support. The refugees accuse North Macedonia of immediately returning them back to Greece in March 2016, in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

PUSH-BACKS

66 APPENDIX

INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL INTERVENTION

Belgium The Lumumba case Patrice Lumumba, former prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, had only been in office for a few months before he was assassinated in 1961. The former colonial power Belgium was one of the parties involved. Fifty years after Lumumba’s assassination, his son filed a criminal complaint; the case is currently pending. ECCHR has supported his case with several amicus curiae briefs, most recently in July 2020.

COLONIAL CRIMES

Germany (Post)colonial injustice in Namibia To this day, Germany has never apologized or paid reparations for its genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples in Namibia (1904–08). ECCHR supports Ovaherero and Nama descendants in raising awareness about this injustice in Germany, and in asserting their demands.

COLONIAL CRIMES

World map

ALL PAST AND ONGOING ECCHR CASES AND PROJECTS ARE MARKED ON THE ENCLOSED WORLD MAP.

67 PUBLICATIONS

ECCHR PUBLICATIONS BOOK CHAPTERS

ECCHR Wolfgang Kaleck/Carolijn Terwindt Tackling impunity: Self-empowerment “Non-governmental organization fact-work: of survivors of international crimes (2020) Not only a technical problem,” in Morten Bergsmo/Carsten Stahn (eds.), Quality control in fact-finding (2020) ECCHR Garment supply chains in intensive care? Human rights due diligence in times Linde Bryk/Miriam Saage-Maaß/ of (economic) crises (2020) Simon Simanovski “Individuelle strafrechtliche Verantwortung für ECCHR/Brot für die Welt/MISEREOR Waffenexporte unter dem Rom-Statut,” in Katrin Höffler (ed.), Criminal Law Discourse Menschenrechtsfitness von Audits of the Interconnected Society (2020) und Zertifizierern: Ein Forderungspapier (2020)

Miriam Saage-Maaß/Carolijn Terwindt ECCHR/ILAW/Worker Rights Consortium “Recht im Kontext imperialer Lebensweise,” in Farce majeure: How global apparel brands Sonja Buckel/Ralph Christensen/Andreas Fischer- are using the COVID-19 pandemic to stiff suppliers Lescano (eds.), Neue Theorien des Rechts (2020) and abandon workers (2020)

ECCHR/FIDH/REDRESS Breaking down barriers: Access to justice ACADEMIC ARTICLES in Europe for victims of international crimes (2020) Wolfgang Kaleck “Diese Krise kommt nicht aus dem Nichts,” (2020) BOOKS 13 Journal der Künste

Wolfgang Kaleck Wolfgang Kaleck et al. (eds.) “Fundierte Hoffnung. Der Kampf für Recht gegen Rechts: Report 2020 (2020) Menschenrechte in Krisenzeiten,” (2020) 20 Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte Wolfgang Kaleck/Morten Bergsmo/ Kyaw Yin Hlaing (eds.) Carsten Gericke Colonial wrongs and access to “Zwischen effektivem Menschenrechtsschutz und international law (2020) Realpolitik. Die jüngere Rechtsprechung des EGMR zum Rechtsschutz an den EU-Außengrenzen,” Joumana Seif/Wejdan Nassif (2020) 12 Asylmagazin, Zeitschrift für Flüchtlings- und Migrationsrecht Stimmen gegen das Schweigen (2020) Chantal Meloni Karina Theurer/ “Individual criminal responsibility,” (2020) Wolfgang Kaleck (eds.) Oxford Bibliographies Dekoloniale Rechtstheorie und Rechtspraxis (2020) Claudia Müller-Hoff/Miriam Saage-Maaß “Kontrolle statt Freiwilligkeit: Konzerne an die Kette,” (2020) 1 Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik

68 APPENDIX

Miriam Saage-Maaß/Armin Paasch Alexandra Lily Kather “Lieferketten unter Corona: Den Letzten beißen “First Yazidi genocide trial commences in Germany,” die Hunde,” (2020) 5 Blätter für deutsche Just Security, 23 April 2020 und internationale Politik Cannelle Lavite Andreas Schüller/Mirka Fries “The French loi de vigilance: Prospects and limitations “Inferno im Paradies: Fehlende Aufarbeitung of a pioneer mandatory corporate due diligence,” von Kriegsverbrechen und deren Folgen,” Verfassungsblog, 16 June 2020 (2020) 40/2 Südasien Cannelle Lavite/Claire Tixeire/ Andreas Schüller Marie-Laure Guislain “Deutschland vor Gericht: “Holding transnational corporations accountable Der Luftangriff bei Kundus,” for international crimes in Syria: Update on (2020) 3 FriedensForum the developments in the Lafarge case (Part I+II),” Opinio Juris, 27/28 July 2020

Andreas Schüller Claudia Müller-Hoff “Eine willkürliche Tötung,” “Der Dammbruch von Brumadinho—Wenn Normab­ 2020 plädoyer ( ) 2 weichungen zum Normalzustand werden,” Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, May 2020

Miriam Saage-Maaß BLOG POSTS “Between utopia and affirmation of the status quo,” Völkerrechtsblog, 20 June 2020 Wolfgang Kaleck “Julian Assange: Pressefreiheit vor Gericht,” Miriam Saage-Maaß netzpolitik, 29 December 2020 “Überwachungstechnologie und menschenrechtliche Sorgfaltspflichten,” netzpolitik, 9 March 2020 Michael Bader “Beauty and the virus: Fashion brands, the Miriam Saage-Maaß/Maren Leifker/ UNGPs and (imagined) solidarity in pandemic times,” Armin Paasch Völkerrechtsblog, 26 May 2020 “Ein Lieferkettengesetz—wichtiger denn je,” Verfassungsblog, 4 June 2020 Michael Bader “Working toward the world we want to live in,” Andreas Schüller Völkerrechtsblog, 15 June 2020 “The ICC, British war crimes in Iraq and a very British tradition,” Opinio Juris, 11 December 2020 Linde Bryk/Marina Aksenova “Extraterritorial obligations of arms exporting Andreas Schüller corporations: New communication to the ICC,” “Werkzeuge für den Völkerrechtsbruch: Die Drohnen­ Opinio Juris, 14 January 2020 bewaffnung in Deutschland und Rechtspositionen der Bundesregierung,” Verfassungsblog, 7 May 2020 Laura Duarte Reyes “Navigating new rights and responsibilities in the Andreas Schüller Colombian Atrato River—An ecocentric approach “Tools to violate international law: Armed drones in to human rights,” Università degli Studi di Padova, Germany and the government’s legal position,” 1 December 2020 Opinio Juris, 22 May 2020

Hanaa Hakiki Ben Vanpeperstraete “N.D. and N.T. v. Spain: defining Strasbourg’s “Corona crisis lays bare the need for responsible position on push backs at land borders?” conduct in dealing with business relationships,” Strasbourg Observers, 26 March 2020 SOMO, 20 April 2020 69 EVENTS

Humboldt University Winter School: Second International Summer School: Human rights violations in Germany: Human rights law in context Gender, colonial crimes and transnational Robert McCorquodale (University of Nottingham), corporations Daniel Crampton (Daimler AG), Faisal Siddiqi (Rasheed Razvi Centre for Constitutional and Human Karina Theurer, Judith Hackmack, Rights), Markus Krajewski (Friedrich-Alexander- Miriam Saage-Maaß (ECCHR) and others Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg), Linde Bryk, 6–24 JANUARY 2020 Miriam Saage-Maaß (ECCHR) and others 7–11 SEPTEMBER 2020 Made in Europe, bombed in Yemen: How we can use legal means Surveillance. Privacy. Civil liberties. to stop arms exports to war zones Wolfgang Kaleck in conversation Ali Jameel (Mwatana for Human Rights), Hannah with Edward Snowden Neumann (MEP), Sabine Visser (Dutch Ministry Edward Snowden (whistleblower), of Foreign Affairs), Teri Schultz (journalist) and Camille Massey (City University of New York) Miriam Saage-Maaß (ECCHR) and Wolfgang Kaleck (ECCHR) 6 MAY 2020 10 SEPTEMBER 2020

Deutsche Bomben und Flugzeuge Conference and discussion: für den Krieg im Jemen: Wie geht es Lieferkettengesetz Made in Germany weiter nach der Strafanzeige Susanne Gasde (German Ministry of Labour and Social beim Internationalen Strafgerichtshof? Affairs), Johanna Kusch (Initiative Lieferkettengesetz), Kai Ambos (Universität Göttingen), Nina Richter (Tchibo), Andreas Rühmkorf (Sheffield Bonyan Gamal (Mwatana for Human Rights), University) and Michael Windfuhr (Deutsches Institut Ronen Steinke (Süddeutsche Zeitung) für Menschenrechte) and Miriam Saage-Maaß (ECCHR) 21 SEPTEMBER 2020 3 JUNE 2020 Advancing child rights strategic litigation Menschenrechtliche Sorgfaltspflicht— Aoife Nolan (University of Nottingham), Manu Krishan Was bedeutet das für Rüstungsunternehmen? (Global Campus of Human Rights), Karabo Ozah Jochen von Bernstorff (Universität Tübingen), (University of Pretoria), Leo Ratledge (Child Rights Carola Hausotter (Deutsche Menschenrechts­ International Network), Ann Skelton (UN Committee on koordination Mexiko), Charlotte Kehne (Ohne the Rights of the Child) and Claire Tixeire (ECCHR) Rüstung Leben) and Christian Schliemann (ECCHR) 23 SEPTEMBER 2020 9 JULY 2020 French arms exports and the conflict Sexualisierte Gewalt im System Assad in Yemen: State responsibility and Rula Asad (Syrian Female Journalists’ corporate duty of vigilance Network), Alexandra Lily Kather Aymeric Elluin, Sabine Gagnier (Amnesty and Joumana Seif (ECCHR) International France), Ali Jameel (Mwatana for 2 SEPTEMBER 2020 Human Rights), Dominique Potier (French MP), Patrick Wilcken (Amnesty International Secretariat) and Cannelle Lavite (ECCHR) 7 OCTOBER 2020

70 APPENDIX

Film talk “Discount Workers,” Strafverfolgung ohne Grenzen— Berlin Human Rights Film Festival Gerechtigkeit für Völkerrechtsverbrechen Christopher Patz (director) vor deutschen Gerichten and Miriam Saage-Maaß (ECCHR) Claudia Roth (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), 6–7 OCTOBER 2020 Bente Scheller (Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung), Leonie Steinl (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), School of resistance: Joumana Seif and Patrick Kroker (ECCHR) A global jurisdiction for a global economy 12 NOVEMBER 2020 Sylvestre Bisimwa (Das Kongo Tribunal), Eva-Maria Bertschy (International Institute of Political Murder) Syrian crimes before European courts: and Miriam Saage-Maaß (ECCHR) SGBV as a weapon of war 22 OCTOBER 2020 Amal Nassar (Global Survivors Fund), Nasser Yassin (American University of Beirut), Mona Zeineddine Das Kongo Tribunal—Kolwezi Hearings (Road to Justice Campaign) and Joumana Seif (ECCHR) 19 NOVEMBER 2020 Colette Braeckman (Le Soir), Marc-Antoine Vumilia (author and director), Dorothée Baumann-Pauly (Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights), Syrian road to justice: Nina Burri (Brot für alle), Oliver Classen (Public Eye), Bridging the gap between accountability Mathias Binswanger (Fachhochschule Nordwest- efforts and the needs of survivors of schweiz), Miriam Saage-Maaß (ECCHR) and others 25 OCTOBER 2020 sexual and gender-based violence in Syria Walter Stevens (EU Delegation to the UN in Geneva), Miriam Shearman (UK Mission to the UN in Geneva), Italian arms exports to Yemen: Michelle Jarvis (International, Impartial and Indepen- State and corporate responsibility dent Mechanism—Syria), Noura Aljizawi (Start Point), Bonyan Gamal (Mwatana for Human Rights), Mona Zeineddine (Women Now for Development), Francesco Vignarca (Rete Italiana Pace e Disarmo), Rand Sabagh (Syrian Female Journalists’ Network) Francesca Cancellaro (Studio legale Gamberini) and Alexandra Lily Kather (ECCHR) and Cannelle Lavite (ECCHR) 7 DECEMBER 2020 27 OCTOBER 2020

Landmark trials in Europe on Syria Yusef Wehbe (Syrian Legal Development Programme), Haneen al-Naqry (Syrian Archive), Nasser Yassin (American University of Beirut) and Patrick Kroker (ECCHR) 11 NOVEMBER 2020

71 COUNCIL, ADVISORY BOARD AND TEAM

COUNCIL Andrea Bührmann Professor of sociology of diversity and Lotte Leicht director of the Institute for Diversity Research, Universität Göttingen, Göttingen EU director, Human Rights Watch, Brussels Joshua Castellino Dieter Hummel Director, Minority Rights Group International/ Lawyer and chair, Vereinigung Demokratischer Professor and dean, School of Law, Juristinnen und Juristen e.V., Berlin Middlesex University London, London

Tobias Singelnstein Gaston Chillier Professor, chair of criminology, Director, Department for International Affairs, Ruhr­-Universität Bochum, Bochum Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, Buenos Aires

Colin Gonsalves EMERITUS ADVISORY BOARD Lawyer and founding director, Human Rights Law Network, Delhi

Theo van Boven Florian Jeßberger Professor emeritus of international law, Professor, chair of criminal law, criminal Maastricht University/Former UN Special procedure law, international criminal Rapporteur on torture, Maastricht law and contemporary legal history, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin Peter Weiss Former vice president, Bonita Meyersfeld Center for Constitutional Rights, New York Human rights lawyer/Assistant professor, School of Law, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

ADVISORY BOARD Manfred Nowak Professor of international law, Alejandra Ancheita University of Vienna/Former UN Special Lawyer, founder and director, Rapporteur on torture, Vienna ProDESC, Mexico City Jennifer Robinson Priya Basil Lawyer, London Writer and activist, Berlin Annemie Schaus Markus N Beeko Professor of international and public law, Secretary general, Amnesty Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels International Germany, Berlin Ole von Uexkull Reed Brody Director, Right Livelihood Award Foundation, Lawyer, Human Rights Watch, New York Stockholm

Vince Warren Executive director, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York

72 APPENDIX

STAFF Mirka Fries International Crimes and Accountability Wolfgang Kaleck (Bertha Justice Fellow through September 2020) General secretary Carsten Gericke Miriam Saage-Maaß Migration (consultant) Vice legal director/ Business and Human Rights Judith Hackmack Institute for Legal Intervention Andreas Schüller International Crimes and Accountability Hanaa Hakiki Migration Karina Theurer Institute for Legal Intervention Sönke Hilbrans International Crimes and Accountability/ Corina Ajder Business and Human Rights Business and Human Rights (since February 2020) Alexandra Lily Kather International Crimes and Accountability Marie Badarne Institute for Legal Intervention Arite Keller Michael Bader Media and Communications/ Institute for Legal Intervention Business and Human Rights/ Institute for Legal Intervention (Bertha Justice Fellow since September 2020) Antonia Klein International Crimes and Accountability Maria Bause (Bertha Justice Fellow) Media and Communications (since September 2020) Albert Koncsek Operations manager Corey Barber Media and Communications Patrick Kroker International Crimes and Accountability Anabel Bermejo Media and Communications Cannelle Lavite (through October 2020) Business and Human Rights Linde Bryk Chantal Meloni Business and Human Rights (consultant) International Crimes and Accountability (consultant) Laura Duarte Reyes Business and Human Rights (Bertha Justice Fellow since October 2020) Claudia Müller-Hoff Business and Human Rights Rieke Ernst Assistant to the general secretary/ Hannah Müssemann Institute for Legal Intervention General Operations/ Fundraising and Partnerships 73 APPENDIX

Anna Ramskogler-Witt RESEARCH FELLOWS Fundraising and Partnerships (consultant) Ibrahim al-Kasem International Crimes and Accountability Silvia Rojas-Castro International Crimes and Accountability Britta Redwood (since March 2020) International Crimes and Accountability (through July 2020) Christian Schliemann-Radbruch Business and Human Rights Delphine Rodrik Migration (September–November 2020) Anne Schroeter International Crimes and Accountability Joumana Seif (since July 2020) International Crimes and Accountability Yaroslavna Sychenkova Florence Stürmer International Crimes and Accountability Institute for Legal Intervention (since July 2020) Matthias Tasser Fundraising and Partnerships (since February 2020) PROJECT STAFF Claire Tixeire Institute for Legal Intervention/ Adrian Bornmann Business and Human Rights Media and Communications (since July 2020) Michelle Trimborn Media and Communications Hend Hussein Media and Communications Ben Vanpeperstraete (since September 2020) Business and Human Rights (consultant) Simon Simanovski Business and Human Rights Matija Vlatkovic´ (through June 2020) Migration (Bertha Justice Fellow) Monalisa Allison West Business and Human Rights International Crimes and Accountability (through June 2020) (since October 2020) Magdalena Kaffai Vera Wriedt International Crimes and Accountability Migration (through July 2020) (Bertha Justice Fellow through August 2020) Alexander Gorski Nicolina Zimmermann Business and Human Rights Fundraising and Partnerships (since December 2020) (since February 2020) 74 APPENDIX

CRITICAL LEGAL TRAINING COOPERATION PARTICIPANTS WITH UNIVERSITIES In 2020, Critical Legal Training participants In 2020, we continued to work with: Bonavero Institute came from ten countries: Argentina, Colombia, for Human Rights, University of Oxford (UK); Center France, Germany, India, Italy, Morocco, Switzerland, for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York the United Kingdom and the United States University (US); Centre for Human Rights Erlangen- Nürnberg, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen- Nürnberg (Germany); Chayes International Public 2020 legal trainees Service and Arthur Helton Fellowship Programs, Teresa Amigo, Abby d’Arcy, Ole Bäßmann, Sophie Harvard Law School (US); EUCLID, Clinique du Droit Beermann, Anne-Lea Berger, Nicola Bier, Matthieu de l’Université de Paris Nanterre (France): HUWISU, Binder, Amanda Brown, Annabell Brüggemann, Winter- und Sommeruniversität, Humboldt-Universität Andreas Buser, Soraia da Costa Batista, Joe Delgrande, zu Berlin (Germany); IHL Law Clinic, Grotius Centre Laura Duarte Reyes, Nora Ebeling, Emilia Fischer, for International Legal Studies, Leiden University Sophie Früchtenicht, Alexander Gorski, Belén (Netherlands); International Humanitarian Law Clinic, Goyeneche, Zeyneb Nuri Hamid, Magdalena Kaffai, Emory University School of Law (US); Law Clinic Dominik Koos, Helena Krüger, Luxcy Lambert, Grund- und Menschenrechte, Humboldt-Universität zu Fin-Jasper Langmack, Ha Mi Le, Shaza Loutfi, Sarah Berlin (Germany); Law Clinic Praxis der Strafverteidi- Lupi, Gwinyai Machona, Monalisa, Franziska Oehm, gung, Freie Universität Berlin (Germany); School of Son Olszewski, Katia Perez Niño, Hannah Rainer, Law, Università degli Studi di Milano Statale (Italy) Lea Rösner, Maria Saab, Giuseppe Sambataro, Sophie Scheytt, Lina Schmitz-Buhl, Simon Simanovski, Ann-Charlotte Stürzel, Damia Taharraoui, Viola Tassarelli, Rojda Tosun, Estelle Zirn

Media and Communications Adrian Bornmann, Sebastian Buck, Simona Koch, Lina Richert

Bertha Justice fellows Michael Bader, Laura Duarte Reyes, Mirka Fries, Antonia Klein, Cannelle Lavite, Matija Vlatkovic´

Bertha Global Exchange fellows Michael Bader (Rasheed Razvi Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, Pakistan)

Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung German Chancellor fellow Isha Khandelwal

Internships, exchanges and research visits were generously sponsored by: Bertha Foundation, Kreuzberger Kinderstiftung

75 PARTNER LAWYERS AND ACADEMICS

Dapo Akande Francesca Cancellaro Professor of public international law, Criminal law, Studio Gamberini Blavatnik School of Government, Associazione Professionale University of Oxford BOLOGNA, ITALY OXFORD, UNITED KINGDOM Bernhard Docke Matthieu Bagard Criminal law, Hannover und Partner Criminal and human rights law BREMEN, GERMANY PARIS, FRANCE Björn Elberling René Bahns and Alexander Hoffmann Criminal, administrative Copyright and media law and constitutional law, Herzog & Kollegen KIEL/LEIPZIG, GERMANY FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY Maik Elster Ernesto Belisario Asylum and migration law Administrative law, JENA/LEIPZIG, GERMANY Studio E-Lex Belisario Scorza Riccio & Partners ROME, ITALY Julie Février Marcel Bosonnet Criminal and human rights law PARIS, FRANCE Kanzlei Bosonnet und Wick ZURICH, SWITZERLAND Jenny Fleischer William Bourdon Asylum and migration law BERLIN, GERMANY and Apolline Cagnat Cabinet Bourdon & Forestier Élise le Gall PARIS, FRANCE International criminal law and environmental criminal law, Cabinet LE GALL Gonzalo Boye and Isabel Elbal PARIS, FRANCE Criminal and human rights law, Boye-Elbal & Asociados Olaf Griebenow MADRID, SPAIN Labor law, TCI Rechtsanwälte BERLIN, GERMANY Berenice Böhlo Asylum and migration law Halvard Helle and Vidar Strømme BERLIN, GERMANY Schjødt OSLO, NORWAY Kirsten Campbell Lecturer, Goldsmiths, University of London Göran Hjalmarsson LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM Advokatfirman Guide AB STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

76 APPENDIX

Matthias Lehnert Petra Schlagenhauf Migration law, Jentsch Rechtsanwälte BERLIN, GERMANY BERLIN, GERMANY Faisal Siddiqi Nadja Lorenz Public interest litigation Asylum and criminal law KARACHI, PAKISTAN VIENNA, AUSTRIA Silke Studzinsky Thilo Marauhn Criminal and international criminal law, Professor of public and international law, Kanzlei Studzinsky | Hermanns Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen BERLIN, GERMANY GIESSEN, GERMANY Babette Tondorf Christophe Marchand Criminal law, and Crépine Uwaschema Kanzlei Menschen und Rechte Criminal and international criminal law, HAMBURG, GERMANY Jus Cogens BRUSSELS, BELGIUM Rodolfo Yanzón Criminal law Carsten Momsen BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA Professor of criminal law, Freie Universität Berlin BERLIN, GERMANY

Cecilie Nakstad Criminal law, Matrix Advokater OSLO, NORWAY

Franziska Nedelmann Asylum and migration law BERLIN, GERMANY

Hannah Rajbenbach Criminal and international criminal law PARIS, FRANCE

Silvio Riesen Liability and insurance law, schadenanwaelte ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

Sebastian Scharmer and Peer Stolle Criminal law, dka Rechtsanwälte | Fachanwälte BERLIN, GERMANY

77 NETWORKS AND DONORS

ECCHR IS A MEMBER OF Bertha Justice Initiative Network, London, UK; Koalition gegen Straflosigkeit. Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit für die deutschen Verschwundenen in Argentinien, Nuremberg/Berlin, Germany; CorA—Netzwerk für Unternehmensverantwortung, Berlin, Germany; European Coalition for Corporate Justice, Brussels, Belgium; Forum Menschenrechte, Berlin, Germany; OECD Watch, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Allianz Rechtssicherheit für politische Willensbildung, Lübeck, Germany; Initiative Lieferkettengesetz, Berlin, Germany; and has consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

DONORS We are very grateful to the individuals and organizations who generously support ECCHR. Thanks to you, ECCHR is able to use legal means to defend human rights, and to act independently and operate effectively. We receive funds from various sources, including private, political and religious foundations, individuals, as well as publications, events and other activities. Some supporters wish to remain anonymous, and we respect their wish. ECCHR does not accept donations from sources that could foreseeably interfere with our independence or undermine our integrity. Nor do we accept donations from sources that work with organizations or states that violate human rights.

WE WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND OUR SPECIAL THANKS FOR THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF

INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS WERE MADE POSSIBLE BY

78 FINANCES

2020 REVENUE

Core funding € 642,133

Project funding € 1,025,800

Private funding € 70,537

Grants (earmarked for 2020) € 1,404,591

Other revenue € 16,186

TOTAL € 3,159,247

2020 EXPENSES

Personnel (core staff) € 1,558,911

Personnel (CLT scholarships, project-based contracts) € 155,818

Rent, office, insurance € 647,244

Programs, projects, events, travel € 519,349

Office move, renovation, equipment € 254,805

Depreciation € 28,957

TOTAL € 3,165,084

NET LOSS € - 5,837

79

Decolonizing the camera in practice Ixmucané Aguilar in Namibia

WOLFGANG KALECK In his book Decolonising the camera, Mark Aguilar’s stories touch upon (post)colonial Sealy describes how Western photographic issues that continue to be discussed today. practice has been used as a tool for creating Between 1904 and 1908, the Germans Eurocentric, violent visual regimes. He asks, slaughtered tens of thousands of Ovaherero, “Has photography been a liberating device Nama and others, and robbed their land in or an oppressive weapon?” To explore this what is now Namibia. The colonizers put their question, he references a group of British prisoners into concentration camps, where missionaries that documented abuses and thousands of colonized people died, and killings in the early 1900s in the Congo Free others were tortured and raped. Many of the State, then privately owned by the Belgian women who survived rape in these camps king. The photographs had a huge impact, gave birth to children, the vast majority of forcing Leopold II to withdraw from the whom were never acknowledged by their Congo, he was later replaced by the Belgian German fathers or the German authorities— state. This “success,” however, was based not even today. on racist ascriptions and did not lead to the Aguilar’s ideas for an exhibition—hopefully Congo’s liberation. Rather, it resulted soon and in Namibia—circle around the in the construction of a “morally higher” connection between the individual and the colonial power. collective. In her portrait series of people in present-day Namibia, she lifts each individual Aguilar’s ideas circle out of complex realities. Those depicted around the connection are full of self-awareness and dignity, not suffering victims of (post)colonial injustice. between the individual The pictures of Namibian landscapes and the collective and animals spread throughout this annual report form the backdrop against which Ixmucané Aguilar is aware of these the portraits can be understood—like the ambivalences. Born in political exile—far natural environment in which human from Guatemala, where genocidal crimes history takes place. were just one consequence of a colonial past How can we achieve reparations for a and centuries of indigenous peoples’ violent genocide after 115 years? This difficult task oppression—she graduated from Weißensee must be organized as a multilayered process: Kunsthochschule Berlin. We met in spring indigenous communities must have their 2019 in Namibia, where she was traveling for say, as well as civil society in both countries. several months and ECCHR was organizing Together with testimonies and archival conferences in Windhoek and Swakopmund on material, Aguilar’s work contributes to the genocides of the Ovaherero and Nama. reconstructing the collective memory that still struggles to be acknowledged. She demonstrates how thoughtful artistic interventions encourage us to think about this process that is long overdue.

81 FRAITAXTSE–S SORES TSÎN GE RA=⁄ GÂ [ EVEN FRIDAYS SUN SETS]

Ixmucané Aguilar

Even Fridays sun sets — This is a Nama-phrase. It refers to a specific Friday. It was a traumatic Friday, a Friday full of fear — a day on which dignity and pride were traded for life. This Friday the men of the village were lured into the church. — to pray — but they were surrounded by german soldiers of the Schutztruppe, by machine gun of iron and taken hostage within the holy walls.

The praying did the women … … even this day took an end with the setting sun. however, the certainty of fear remained …

The history of Namibia has left many stories behind, stories consisting of living voices longing for acknowledgement and recognition. Injustice, genocide and violence enforced during the German colony are confronted today with the physical and psychological inheritance of the descendants. Genocide is a turbulent matter in Namibia, yet — and perhaps for this reason — largely ignored, underestimated and denied. Whilst staying in different parts of Namibia, I had the opportunity to exchange with descendants of the victims — who can vividly recall memories and ruptures left by human and land loss. From these personal encounters emerged documental fragments in form of portraits followed by poems, lamentations, family testimonies — complemented with archival material as cross- referencing sources. This photo-documentary compiles a portrait of the Genocide against the Herero and Nama people. It is neither an academic work on general history, nor a political statement. Rather than a depiction of individual stories and characters, the sequence of portraits and narratives are a collective evidence of human perspectives and its trans-generational effects. Pieces of humanity and time, which are recognisable as episodes from the present, past and future. ISLAND OF DEATH

Not a single plant grows on grey granite, gravel and rock — only bulks of seaweed rise and fall in the monotone rhythm of cold waves washing over bones. 11 500 Km by ship from Hamburg lies the small town of Lüderitz. Built on rocks and sand it is wedged in between the vast Namib desert and the cold southern Atlantic ocean. In 1883 Heinrich Vogelsang purchased a few hectares of dunes here — seemingly dead land. But it soon became the gateway for german settlers and officials to move into the interior and colonise theland. The town looks onto the bay, which is made up of stone structures protruding from the water. One of these stones is called Shark Island. It is a small peninsula, really, and the extension of the town’s main street, Bismarckstraße, leads right onto it. There is a camping place now. And there are white marble plaques in heroic commemoration of soldiers of the Schutztruppe. What is virtually invisible, though, is that this island was a place where thousands of Nama and Herero people were kept as prisoners of war under german colonial rule: a concentration camp. The fact that the living and working conditions on Shark Island were virtually unsurvivable make the majority of historians come to the conclusion that this was not only a prisoner’s camp, but rather a death camp — run by the military for military purposes. … It was a tactic of war and a continuation of the „extermination order” pronounced a few months earlier.. On the 12th December 1904, the Kaiser received a report from one of his African colonies. Fifty-five handwritten pages by officer Georg von Stillfried. His report describes in detail the implementation of what he called Geschlossene Niederlassungen — “confined areas”. He alludes to the “concentration camps” that the British had used in the Boer War in . What was new about Stillfried’s “confined areas” was that in addition to being concentration camps, the prisoners would be subjected to forced labour. Shark Island was one of many concentration camps in the former colony. Prisoners of war: men, women and children, were kept under sometimes harsh and sometimes lethal conditions. Native’s body- parts were skinned by women prisoners to be packed and sent to Germany for collectors and race scientists. Prisoners were „rented out“ to companies and settlers as a cheap workforce to develop the very land that was taken away from them. Harbours were built, railways were constructed, ships were unloaded, buildings were built, roads were built, land was fenced in, small and large enterprises emerged … within a couple of years the colony was a thriving land in which the german government could reinforce its reign in tranquility.

83

Omatjete Erongo Region, Western Namibia Herero Land

Once I went to Germany and we visited the Schutztruppe-cemetery. I found myself in front of the grave of Major Klink … Katanaura — God is unchangeable. That was the name of my father — born in 1891. Tjingeeri Katanaura. He told me — He told me how he was imprisoned. Enslaved together with his people, men, women, children. My father was only a boy. They were taken to the island of death — Shark Island. Lüderitz. Cold rock, icy winds, no shelter — only hessian sacks. Uncooked rice and hard work … Five of my father’s family died. I want to see that island — it is 931 km from here. There is poor transport. In Lüderiz they were forced to work on the harbour and the railway tracks through the desert. The Lenz Company from Berlin was contracted. Thousand of prisoners from the island carried out the work. Unpaid. Thousands of people died. My father survived. He managed to escape with his uncle, whom the germans called „Dunkel-mann“. He was pitch black. His real name was we are killing people. Working on different farms they made their way back to their home region, it was now German occupied land. The town of Omaruru. Central Hotel. Germans dressed in white paraded to receive royal family. My father was given coffee to drink from a jam-tin. He now worked on his ancestral land for a white man. The white man’s name was Major Klink.

[ ARCHIVE ] See Archive Nr. NANZBU_D-IV-l.170.

86 [ ARCHIVE. NANZBU_D-IV-l.169 ]

[ STATISTICS ON DEATHS AMONG PRISONERS OF WAR OF THE RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION COMPANY ]

Hereby, I respectfully submit to the Imperial Government statistics on the deaths among the prisoners of war transferred for the Lüderitzbucht railroad construction for the period from the beginning of the transfer until now. I assume that the figures will be of interest for comparison with the mortality rate on Shark Island. The figures differ somewhat from those reported in the appendix to the annual report. The figures given there are based on the reports of the railroad construction company in charge; the figures now given are taken from information provided by the construction management and are likely to be more accurate. The remittances were almost exclusively from Herero.

87 [ ARCHIVE NANZBU_D-IV-l.170. ]

From January 1906 — June 1907 more than 2000 prisoners carried out the construction of the Railway from Lüderitz to Keetmanshop. During these period a monthly record was kept of the prisoners and their deaths. Upward 70% died during the railway construction.

Tjingeeri Katanaura was one of the very few people to survived.

88 Bethanien IIKaras Region, Southern Namibia. Nama Land

… I close my eyes. I can see Magdalena Witbooi. She was the wife captain Cornelius Frederick, a feared Nama worrier. When they were captured they were sent to Shark Island. She was separated from her husband and taken to a room. In this room she was raped by one german soldier after the other. I can see her … She can’t take it any longer. She begs for another duty. Through the window she sees other women, they are forced to boil the heads of their people and scrape off the flesh. With pieces of broken glass. Magdalena is sent outside to do the same — she has to scrape the heads and stack clean sculls into wooden boxes to be sent to german museums and race scientists. One day she sees her husband again. She holds him in her hands. The sound of glass on bone is the last thing we remember of our captain.

89 Maltahöhe IIKaras Region, Southern Namibia Nama Land

Our Community was divided. On the one side of the dry river bed was the location where the black people were staying, and on the other side was the whites only residential area. I was a child in the house of my grandmother, together with my cousins. Oumama used to send us to buy bread in town. We had to cross the river. The white kids were waiting there and throwing stones at us. My grandmother instructed us every time, not to throw stones back at them. But we did — we had to, it was like a frenzy! The boys kept fighting, while the girls ran to get the bread. Grandmother was angry. She sent us to get branches from the „peperboom“. Oumama would beat each one of us. With every lash she cried out, stay away from those white children! Stay away from those white children! Stay away from those white children! or you will end up on the island … I didn’t know what island she was talking about, only years later I understood that it was Shark-Island, the island of death. The elders said that Oumama was born on that Island.

90 MOTHERS

„German blood runs through my veins“ — this is a statement made by many Herero and Nama people. It is an unpleasant matter, yet, simultaneously is not a taboo. Outright intimate violence, coercion, or wanted relationships that nonetheless were based on a power gap between German soldiers/ settlers and female prisoners, who had been stripped of most if not all rights in the colony, were a hidden normality in the early century. Colonise the land means colonise the people. 1904: 8000 soldiers of the Schutztruppe in South-West-Africa. 1906: over 15,000 soldiers of the Schutztruppe in South-West-Africa. 1913: 1746 “Mischlinge“ counted. All members of the Schutztruppe were white germans. It was undoubtedly a masculine world. Many settled on the newly acquired land. Rhetorics and general conceptions of race expansion, german superiority, rough and masculine, pioneers in the name of the Kaiser fostering greater militancy, war, the existential dependence of Herero and Nama workers on their „new masters“, the distances to the next neighbour, the silence in the bush. It was so easy and so tempting, so generally overlooked. Abuse and oppression … their way of mastering. What is a suppressed woman for a rough frontier in the desert? It did not matter. With every abuse the dignity of the native people sank a little lower, until it was covered by the dust on the ground. Women carry much of a people’s dignity. They are the mothers. Again they became mothers and this time the love for a child was mixed with the taste of a suppressor’s sweat. Routined masculine sadism, legitimised by a military cause. A particular way of waging war, not only against the leaders but against a people — against women. German fatherhood in Herero and Nama families and the general acceptance of seemingly inevitable war tactics make the reticence and resistance of the German Namibian community to act for reparatory justice even more deeply frustrating and unsettling.

91 Maltahöhe IIKaras Region, Southern Namibia Nama Land

There was only one bed, we carried it outside every night. My grandmother slept on the bed, while my cousins and I slept on the ground next to the bed. The boys on one side, the girls on the other. With the open sky above us, we used to comb my grandmother’s hair. Among the girls we were fighting for a turn. Her hair was long and fine. Caucasian hair. It was very strange — I can still feel it between my fingers. Why was her hair different to ours? The brush didn’t get stuck, like it would get stuck in my hair. „Why is your hair like that? Why is it different to ours?“ We adored her soft long hair. „That’s not a child’s business!!“ the curiosity of a child was in me. I asked her over and over again, it was easy to guess that it was something that she didn’t want to talk about. Over time my grandmother opened up. With sadness in her voice she said: „I am the child of a german“. I couldn’t understand — black and white do not mix! In fact it was not allowed … Her mother was brought to a concentration camp. Women were rented out as slaves for german men. She got pregnant. twice … one girl and one boy. The father was a german settler. the girl is my grandmother … the boy got lost. 1915 — World War I The British troops crossed the borders. They found the concentration camp near Karibib. Okawayo. The people were transported by train. As the mother of my grandmother was getting on the train, she asked a Herero woman to hold the boy for her … The moment she wanted to pick up her son, the train left. The Herero woman ran after the train „take your boy! take your boy!“ But the train left! That is how my grandmother lost her brother. That is how my grandmother was released from the camp. I can see her and all the prisoners clutching to their meagre belongings in a desperate wish to get away from there … yet, probably wondering if it was another trap.

92 Gobabis Omaheke Region, Eastern Namibia Herero Land

I am not a young man anymore. At the time of the Genocide, my grandmother was a young woman. Women were selected to be taken to the german farms. As a maid she worked in the kitchen. The man of the house was a former german soldier, now a farmer. His name was Statz Heinrich Bennecke. He is my grandfather. I don’t know if it was rape but it was without consent. He trained for 14 years as an officer in Germany and served for 17 years in Okahandja. He was married. His wife left him and went back to Germany. He never acknowledged the two daughters that he had with my grandmother. When he passed away his wife inherited his land. She came back and sold it all. Our land! … just like that … … then she left again. I searched for his grave — I wanted to see it. He is buried in Omaruru. It is 403 Kilos from here, the grave is abandoned. I am collecting money to mend it. I brought him flowers. He is my blood.

93 Otjimbingwbe Erongo Region, Northern Namibia. Herero Land

Much of my childhood I spent with my aunt. She had a lighter skin than me, her father was a German man. Way back in the 60’s my aunty took us to our communal land in the reserve. Sheep, cattle and goats were our livestock. One day, a sheep was in labour. It was dying. I heard the noises that the sheep made. I ran to my aunty and told her. I was scared. She said: run and tell your uncle to boil his razors. She prepared two bottles of sheep milk with diluted water. My aunty cleaned the stomach of the sheep. She shaved it with my uncle’s razors … she cleaned it again with water. She cut the sheep open and two lambs came out of it. It was unbelievable that the two lambs were alive. The most unbelievable thing is how she knew they were two. My curiosity took me back to her: „how did you know that if you cut the sheep open there were going to be two lambs?“ „Do you know the picture of the white baby at our house in Karibib?“ — she asked. „Yes!“ — I said. „I also took that baby out of her mother, who died while she was giving birth.“ — she said. She told me how she learned to help giving birth: As a Child she was captured and taken to the concentration camp together with her mother. One day a german soldier was abusing her mother. She was a tall girl with a strong will. She overpowered the soldier to save her mother from the disgrace. Other soldiers laughed at the man. He stabbed my aunt through her hand with the bayonet on his gun. I remember my aunty’s hand was crippled. She gained respect together with her mother. She was now allowed to run along with the soldiers to see whatever they were doing. She followed the soldiers, when they were looking after their animals, when the animals gave birth. She observed — not in vein. She became a midwife.

94 L A N D

When speaking of genocide, it is not only about human loss, but also about land. Lives were taken and land was taken. Between 1904 and 1908, German soldiers systematically killed or worked to death approximately 80,000 Herero and Nama people. Meanwhile, the colonial administration had enough time and enough forced labour to cast the foundation for a German society on the ancestral land of the victims. By 1908 the German government had grabbed a total of 46 million hectares of land. Five years later 15,000 german settlers, united by race and culture, inhabited this land. Land was forcefully de-habitated and ready to be re-habitated. Enthusiastic settlers turned the land into private property … … fences were installed, brick houses were built, dams were constructed; life stock, vegetables, trees, roads, boreholes, water tanks, water pipes, flushing toilets! Kolonialarbeit : progress as justification! A german wife, many children. Mischehenverbot — Ban on mixed marriages. Abendbrot, folklore songs, tales and rimes, Beethoven, Karl May, the Kaiser and his birthday, German sports clubs, German Carnival German beer — Deutsches Reinheitsgebot, Vaterland. Deutsche Werte: Nostalgia and race as justification! A German society that would distort, reinvent and deny history in speeches, literature, national flags and bronze statues … … until today.

[ ARCHIVE ] See archive NAN_BKE224 -224a Progress achieved with forced labour of the same people who were dispossessed of their land.

95

[ EHI ]

Herero and Nama people were driven off their land. Land of the people — people of the land. The meaning of Land goes beyond substance and productivity. Omumborombonga — the tree that gave birth to the Ovaherero people and their cattle. The branches rise up, the wood is heavy as lead and the roots are firmly woven into the soil. Soil, land, country — there is only one word for them all: Ehi. Land where their ancestors are buried and the spirits remain living. Ancestors cannot be seen, but they reveal themselves to the world through the landscape. Every Herero who sets his feet on ancestral ground, sinks down and eats some of the soil — it is part of him. Land that sustained rituals. Mourning rituals. Holy fire. Speaking to the ancestors. Land that sustained culture. Land that sustained community. Land that sustained life.

[ LEBENSRAUM ]

„We are like the tree that roots in a crevice. Either we push the rock apart and grow further — or we wither away … … It is not right either among nations or among individuals that people who can create nothing should have a claim to preservation. No false philanthropy or racial theory can prove to reasonable people that the preservation of any cattle-breeding South African negroes or their cousins on Lake Kivu and Lake Victoria, by any degree of independence, self-reliance and lack of culture, are more important for the future of humanity than the expansion of the great European nations and the white race in general. Should the German people renounce to become bigger and more efficient, to look for a freer living space for their sons and daughters in the world, because … some black tribe leads its barbaric natural existence on a piece of land, where ten thousand German families could have a flourishing life and increase the juice and strength of our people? Only by learning to create values in the service of the superior race … does the native gain a moral right to self-assertion.“

** PAUL ROHRBACH, DER DEUTSCHE GEDANKE IN DER WELT Paul Rohrbach was a much read political author and professor for colonial economy at the Handelshochschule Berlin. Between 1903 and 1906 he acted as the settlement commissioner in South-West-Africa.

102 [ ARCHIVE. NAN_BKE2244-224a ]

1. The district offices determine the need for prisoners for labor purposes and indicate it to the Etappenkommando. 2. The accommodation of the prisoners shall be regulated by the respective administration. In villages they will be gathered in guarded stables, so that escape is prevented as far as possible. 3. Clothing and food shall be provided by the employer. Children shall also be provided with meals … 4. As prisoners, they are not paid for their work. People working with prisoners shall pay compensation to the civil administration for this privilege. For each prisoner who is able to work, regardless of gender, 50 pfennigs per day are to be paid, or 10 marks per month in the case of a permanent transfer. 103 Otjinene Omaheke region Herero Land

[ HOW IT ALL BEGAN ]

„In every nation’s life, there comes a time of ultimate sacrifice. There comes a time when every source the nation possesses is tested; a time when life seems unfair; a time when all life saving bridges are washed away by the storms; a time when our values, our faith, our patience and our ability to persist are pushed to their ultimate limits and beyond. When the white man ventured to travel on high seas of the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, by boats and ships, without a candle or a lantern, in the dead of the night, destined for a continent he had never seen before, his journey meant business. For the people of the land which is now Namibia, the man of no colour came out from the Atlantic Ocean. He indeed came from nowhere, so it seemed. But today, like scripture to marble, Africa and the white man are two inseparable twins. He posseses land. He paid for it in sweat and sundry, in blood and flesh, in kind and money, he argues. However, he took his power beyonds its limits for whatever possessions his children have in Africa today! … bear with me, the underground is painful. Human remains, the bones of our people are scattered all over our land. Dust hast settled, however the Genocide left a Void …

by Adolphus S. Kangootui, descendant of Kandji family — which is well known among the Herero community for their unique healing attributes and spiritual connection to their ancestors.

In the red dunes in front of the Otjimanangombe community lie the remains of this family, which were assassinated by german soldiers in 1904. From that day on, the dunes have remained holy. Today no one touches these dunes, there is not a single house, only human remains.

104 Gam Region Otjozondjupa, North East Namibia Border with Botswana

My ancestral land is near Okakarara … 432 Km from here. It is a challenge to live in Gam. It is a challenge to live in a so-called Native Reserve. We live here because of the diaspora. We are Herero, We live off the livestock, we live off the cows, we live off the land. Gam, is far away from everything, The closest place with health services is Grootfontein — 409 Kilometers. There is not a real transport infrastructure. People cannot afford a car. We were settled here more than 25 years ago. We came back from Botswana. We are the children of those Hereros, who fled over the Omaheke desert in1904 . We were always unwanted strangers in Botswana. … then we returned to our mother country And we were brought to this second-rate location. … nothing, only dust. Look at the drought in Gam, the land is overgrazed. We have our cows in cattle posts … 20 to 50 household stay in one plot. Obviously that is not sustainable for our livestock. so far, we have survived … There is a poisonous plant which kills our cattle. the „Otjikuryoma“ plant it grows easily in this drought, the cattle are hungry, how can they not be tempted to chew on the lush green leaves? Our cattle are dyeing. Germans in Namibia? I have no contact with any of them. I wouldn’t mind.

105 106 107 IMPRINT

PUBLISHER European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights e.V. (ECCHR) General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck (V. i. s. d. P.) Zossener Str. 55–58, Staircase D 10961 Berlin Germany Tel + 49 (0) 30 40 04 85 90 Fax + 49 (0) 30 40 04 85 92 [email protected] www.ecchr.eu

THIS REPORT COVERS THE PERIOD 1 January to 31 December 2020

EDITORIAL DEADLINE 20 March 2021

EDITING AND TEXTS Arite Keller Michelle Trimborn

TRANSLATION AND EDITING Corey Barber

EDITORIAL SUPPORT Maria Bause David Kerkhoff Allison West

IMAGES Ixmucané Aguilar

DESIGN Gregor Schreiter

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