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The Enough Project deeply mourns the loss earlier this week of Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and staunch human rights advocate who was an instrumental force in combating genocide and crimes against humanity in our world today ...

Efforts to support peace, corporate accountability, and transparency in the Democratic Republic of Congo faced a setback today, as the House of Representatives passed an amendment introduced by Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) to defund implementation of the Security Exchange Commission (SEC)’s rule to address conflict minerals ...

June 21 was an historic day for many victims of war in the Central African Republic (CAR). This was the day that the wheels of international justice, through the International Criminal Court, finally turned on Jean Pierre Bemba, the former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for the rape and pillage committed by his troops in CAR between 2002 and 2003. After 13 years, this judgment finally felt like something of a real victory for defenders of justice and other innocent Central Africans living under a climate of total impunity for perpetrators of atrocities ...

Today, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed General Célestin Kanyama, the Police Commissioner of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city Kinshasa, on its Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List. General Kanyama has been linked to at least three police operations that used excessive force, including “Operation Likofi” in which police summarily killed at least 51 youth and forcibly disappeared 33 others during an anti-crime campaign from November 2013 to January 2014, as well as deadly attacks on peaceful protestors in October 2015 ...

In July of last year, U.S. President Barack Obama gave a landmark speech at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, criticizing leaders who undemocratically change their constitutions to stay in power and emphasizing that the United States would call out such behavior. He pointed to Burundi where a few months earlier, President Pierre Nkurunziza pressured the courts to change the constitution’s term limits so that he could run for a third time. Obama warned that such a tactic could trigger “instability and strife,” as well as hamper “Africa’s democratic progress.” But his words seem to have fallen on ...

Yesterday, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) filed an 11th hour amendment to the financial services appropriations bill to de-fund enforcement of the conflict minerals provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The amendment was adopted by the House Rules Committee and will go to the House floor for a vote today ...

On June 13, key Members of the House of Representatives introduced a Resolution calling on the Obama Administration to impose targeted sanctions and leverage other financial pressure as one way to support the constitution of the the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ...

The backlash from leading humanitarian and development organizations continues over the European Union’s recent plan to work with Sudan and other repressive regimes to address irregular migration flows and stop refugees from reaching Europe. This plan would partner the EU with Sudan, despite Sudan President Omar al-Bashir’s outstanding International Criminal Court arrest warrants and the regime’s terrible human rights record, and Eritrea, where a 2016 United Nations Commission of Inquiry found that Eritrean government officials have committed crimes against humanity, including enslavement, rape, and torture, over the past 25 years ...

Today, the International Criminal Court (ICC) sentenced Jean-Pierre Bemba to 18 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Experts at the Enough Project have been following the case and are available for comment and analysis ...

Based on extensive field interviews with UN officials, charcoal traders, leading Congolese conservationists and whistleblowers, and local and international law enforcement officials, Enough's newest report explains how the illegal trade works and offers specific policy recommendations aimed at ending the trade and providing alternative fuels ...