On Monday, July 8, 2024, the Court of Appeal in Metz determined that Ian Thomas Cleary can be extradited to the U.S. for pending sexual assault charges. When asked if he wanted to be extradited, per French Law, he refused.[1] Cleary’s refusal may delay the extradition process but will ultimately not prevent it, as the ruling is final. 

        On June 25, 2024, the Stedelijk Museum announced it would return a rare Henri Matisse painting to the heirs of Jewish textile manufacturer Albert Stern[2] [2] following a Dutch Restitutions Committee ruling. Prior to World War II, Matisse’s Odalisque 1920-1921 painting belonged to Albert and his wife Marie Stern’s private art collection. In recent years, the Stern family, represented by the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, worked with the museum to jointly submit their case to the Dutch Restitutions Committee. 

        On July 4, 2024, the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) expressed grave concern about Vietnam’s request to Thailand to extradite refugee and human rights defender Y Quynh Bdap, who co-founded Montagnards Stand for Justice, an organization advocating for Indigenous rights in rights in Vietnam. Y Quynh Bdap has lived in Thailand since 2018, where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees recognizes him as a refugee as he awaits resettlement to a third country.

            On June 11, 2024, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on one of Guyana’s wealthiest families: Nazar Mohamed, his son, Azruddin Mohamed, and their company, Mohamed’s Enterprise, as well as Guyana’s Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Labor: Mae Thomas, alleging public corruption.  OFAC additionally sanctioned Team Mohamed’s Racing Team and Hadi’s world for their connection to (owned or controlled by) the Mohameds.[1]   The Mohameds deny any wrongdoing.

            On June 17, 2024, the heads of anti-corruption agencies in the Commonwealth Caribbean concluded their annual conference in Nassau, The Bahamas.  They unanimously pledged to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) in the fight against corruption. The Commonwealth Secretariat and the Bahamas Public Disclosure Commission as well as the Association of Integrity Commissions and Anti-Corruption Bodies in the Commonwealth Caribbean (CCAICACB), hosted the Commissions and Anti-Corruption Bodies.

        On June 25, 2024, a Maryland Federal Grand Jury charged Russian national Amin Timovich Stigal with conspiracy to hack into and destroy the Ukrainian Government’s computer systems and data ahead of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Stigal allegedly attacked computer systems in countries that supported Ukraine, including the United States. Stigal currently remains at large. 

  On July 26, 2024,  Julian Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act in a U.S. court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean.  The plea results in Assange’s immediate release without conditions and ends the efforts of the U.S., British, and Swedish governments to obtain custody and prosecute him since 2010.

               On June 24, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two top Russian officials: Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu and Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov, Russia’s former defense minister and Russia’s current chief of the army, respectively.  The ICC accuses both men of targeting Ukraine’s electric infrastructure during the war, a move that inflicted needlessly extensive (proportionate to the military gain) harm on the civilian population, according to the Hague-based court.

              Two major international bodies—the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) — delivered decisions on June 25, 2024, confirming Russia's long-term perpetration of international crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine. The ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II announced on June 25, that it had issued arrest warrants for former Russian Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the Russian General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov for “the war crime of directing attacks at civilian objects” in Ukraine.

             On July 26, 2024,  Julian Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act in a U.S. court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean.  The plea results in Assange’s immediate release without conditions and ends the efforts of the U.S., British, and Swedish governments to obtain custody and prosecute him since 2010.