International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim AA Khan announced Feb. 28 that he will open an investigation into the situation in Ukraine. In light of Ukraine's acceptance of the ICC's jurisdiction on an open-ended basis to address alleged crimes committed on its territory since 2014, Khan said the ICC may proceed despite Ukraine not being a state party to the Rome Statute. On reviewing the preliminary examination by the Office of the Prosecutor, Khan affirmed that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine.

Karim AA Khan, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), released a statement Feb. 25 on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, asserting the ICC's jurisdiction over "any act of genocide, crime against humanity or war crime committed within the territory of Ukraine." Khan recalled that Ukraine's parliament granted the ICC jurisdiction over such matters in 2015 when it passed a declaration addressing "crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by senior officials of the Russian Federation."

The European Union imposed new sanctions Feb. 21 on five Russian individuals involved in elections in the Crimean peninsula. The EU sanctions framework was established in March 2014, when Russian forces invaded and annexed the peninsula from Ukraine. At the time, the EU declared the move a "clear violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity by acts of aggression by the Russian armed forces." The new sanctions target five individuals responsible for election of members to represent the annexed peninsula in the Russian Duma. Three of the individuals are newly elected Duma representatives for the Crimean cty of Sevastopol. The other two are the head and deputy head of the Sevastopol electoral commission. The elections took place on Sept. 19, 2021.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Feb. 9 that Uganda must pay $325 million in reparations to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for its involvement in the Ituri conflict two decades ago. The ruling is based on a 2005 ICJ finding that Uganda violated international law by engaging in military activities in the DRC after occupying the latter's northeastern Ituri province. Uganda was held responsible for the killing and torture of civilians, destruction of entire villages, conscripting child soldiers, inciting ethnic conflict, and plundering of natural resources.

A Netherlands court on Feb. 7 set aside a bid for amnesty and ruled to continue pre-trial detention of a Dutch ex-army member suspected of war crimes, including the murder of civilians, during Suriname's internal war. The 55-year-old Suriname-born Dutchman was arrested in Amsterdam in October 2021 on the basis of an investigation indicating that he murdered several Surinamese civilians in 1987 in the area of Brownsweg, Brokopondo district.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Feb. 7 urged Tajikistan's authorities to restore internet connectivity in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO, by its Russian acronym), and called on the national government to ensure due process for a political activist from the region whose whereabouts remain unknown weeks after he was detained.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Feb. 2 charged that during and since last month's popular uprising in Kazakhstan, security forces have arbitrarily detained protestors, tortured some detainees, and interfered with their access to lawyers. The nationwide protests, which began over of a rise in energy prices, turned bloody after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered his armed forces to "shoot and kill without warning," leading to the deaths of at least 227 people. HRW says it has received dozens of credible accounts of arbitrary detentions, with some of those arrested being beaten with batons or given electric shocks. The organization directly interviewed some former detainees and their lawyers, and compiled reports from Kazakh rights groups and independent media outlets. Reported abuses include the forcible transfer of wounded persons from hospitals to detention centers.

Some 36,400 Afghan refugees lack a clear path to US citizenship or permanent residency, according to a report released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Jan. 28. The report surveys the immigration status of more than 76,000 Afghan refugees now under the supervision of Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), a DHS-coordinated program aimed at resettling Afghans within the United States. OAW, initiated on Aug. 29, is the domestic counterpart to Operation Allies Refuge (OAR), the military effort to evacuate select Afghan citizens after their country fell to the Taliban that month.