On August 8, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it received court authorization to seize an Airbus A319-100 (the Airbus) owned and controlled by sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrei Skoch, pursuant to a seizure warrant from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.  The warrant found that the airplane is subject to seizure and forfeiture based on probable cause of violation of U.S. anti-money laundering laws.[1]

On August 9, 2022, President Joseph Biden  signed into law the CHIPS Act of 2022.  It enables the U.S. Government a primary role in deciding which chip makers will benefit from the legislation’s funding.  It also gives the Department of Commerce the authority to review future company investments in sensitive countries (e.g., China) and to claw back funds from any firm that it deems to have violated its rules.  The law also authorizes the Commerce Department to update the rules for foreign investment in the future.  The law also requires Federal research agencies to prohibit participation in “foreign talent recruit programs” and requires Federal research agencies to create policies to prohibit awards to individuals party to a “malign foreign talent recruitment program.”  To a large extent the new law is an adjunct to the “Strategy for Countering Nation-State Threats,” which Matthew Olsen, the new head of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, announced on February 23, 2022 replaced the China Initiative.  This article discusses the restrictive parts of the CHIPS Act. 

On July 8, 2022, the Colombian Attorney General announced that, through the Specialized Unit against Human Rights Crimes and with the National Police, it succeeded in arresting three persons whose extradition the United States has requested for transporting skins of exotic animals and endangered species.[1]

On August 2, 2022, the Guatemalan National Civil Police (PNC) executed a significant enforcement operation targeting a transnational human smuggling organization.  The operation was conducted with extensive cooperation from the United States and led to the arrest of four alleged human smugglers indicted by Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA).  In total, the Guatemalan authorities detained 19 alleged members of Alfa Siete, a gang generating nearly $2 million from human smuggling to the U.S.[1]

On June 8, 2022, the Clooney Foundation for Justice published a report, documenting the harms created by looting of antiquities as a weapon of war and a major source of financing state and non-state armed groups in conflicts in the Middle East.  The report makes a number of excellent recommendations. 

On July 19, 2022, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) released its fact finding report into the Ryanair Flight 4978 incident on May 23, 2021, when the flight was diverted by a bomb threat to land at Minsk National Airport, where two passengers were arrested by authorities.  

The Philippine Court of Appeals on July 7, 2022 upheld the criminal conviction of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa and her co-defendant, Reynaldo Santos Jr., for the offense of criminal libel, a case not brought until six years after the alleged libel was published and for violation of a cyber libel law that did not yet exist. ^[1]

The circumstances of prisons in the Caribbean were spotlighted this past July 5 and 6 at a conference on penal reform held in St. Kitts and Nevis.  The conference was organized by IMPACT Justice, a Barbados-based program funded by the Canadian government and headed by Professor Velma Newton, a former law dean at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies.[1] The conference, which I had the honor to chair, had several aims, including to highlight access to justice and other issues within the prison sector, such as inmate treatment, physical facilities, inmate programs and services, and compliance with the Mandela Rules. Moreover, the meeting was intended to reflect on improvements needed and encourage discussions among government officials, advocates, and experts about reform. The conference, which brought together prison sector leaders, prosecutors, academic experts, legal aid advocates, and journalists, some in person and others via zoom, highlighted some of the harsh realities of prisons in the Caribbean, a few of which are discussed below.  

In November 2019, The Gambia instituted proceedings against Myanmar alleging violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) through “acts adopted, taken and condoned by the Government of Myanmar” against the Rohingyas, a principally Muslim and stateless ethnic group, which has lived for centuries in the majority Buddhist Myanmar. It also requested the indication of provisional measures to protect the Rohingyas’ rights, which were ordered in January 2020.[1] Exactly one year later, Myanmar raised four preliminary objections to the ICJ jurisdiction and the admissibility of the Application. The ICJ gave its judgment, rejecting them all, in July 2022.[2] The purpose of this note is to offer an overview of Myanmar’s objections in the order examined by the ICJ.

On July 25, 2022, Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) charged 19 former members of the army, one state official, and two civilians with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The JEP determined that the members of the 16th Brigade killed 303 innocent people in 218 incidents between 2005 and 2008 in the Casanare department.