China defended its human rights record to the UN on Tuesday, insisting it was abiding by its obligations and cooperating with inquiries. Last week a group of independent UN rights experts issued a report expressing concern over harassment of activists for their attempts to participate in a UN human rights assessment of China. In response [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez on Tuesday encouraged governmental review of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners adopted in 1955, with particular emphasis on limiting solitary confinement. Mendez noted the rules fail to keep pace with international human rights law regarding torture, as there is no explicit language prohibiting torture [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center examines the recent Amnesty International report and provides several possible justifications for drone attacks under international law …
In an open letter to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Kenya’s UN Ambassador Macharia Kamau requested that the International Criminal Court (ICC) defer the trials against Kenyan officials . Kamau emphasized the country’s current security struggles and how the continued trial could prevent Kenya from fully addressing the nation’s problems. The Security Council has [...]
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on Wednesday recommended a rule surrounding the obligations states owe to women during and after conflict. The recommendation was put forward in an attempt to provide guidance to the signatories of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women . [...]
Lawyers for five Guantanamo Bay inmates implicated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Tuesday argued that restrictive rules for classifying evidence violate the Convention Against Torture , a treaty that the US ratified in 1994. The lawyers represent Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks. At a pretrial hearing [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday urged the EU to allow migrants and asylum seekers to find refuge in Europe. HRW’s statement comes in the wake of a tragedy earlier this month in which hundreds of migrants drowned on their way from Libya to Italy . In its statement, HRW criticized the EU for focusing [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Tuesday that a warrant is required prior to the government’s attachment of a global positioning system (GPS) device to a vehicle for the purposes of monitoring the vehicle’s movements. In December 2010 FBI agents affixed a “slap-on” GPS tracker to the exterior of Harry Katzin’s [...]
The UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples James Anaya on Tuesday voiced concern over the fate of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples , stating that its implementation would be “difficult, if not impossible” without greater awareness of human rights values. The declaration was adopted by the General Assembly [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday urged the Thai government and parliament to reject a proposed blanket amnesty law that would prevent all prosecutions of people involved in political unrest, including protest leaders, military personnel and other authorities responsible for crackdowns on protesters. The proposed law expands a prior version of the draft law , [...]
