UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay publicly supported the final report of the UN Fact Finding Mission of the Gaza Conflict on Wednesday, calling its conclusions sound. The report, originally adopted by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in October, accused both Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas fighters of war crimes during [...]
Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler said Wednesday that the state of Maryland and its agencies should recognize same-sex marriages performed lawfully in other states. Gansler's opinion, issued in response to a legislator's request for clarification of Maryland law, said that the state's highest court would likely rule that legal same-sex marriages from other states are [...]
Incidents of anti-Semitism in Canada have risen 11.4 percent since 2008, according to a Wednesday report by B'nai Brith Canada . The group found that there were 1,264 incidents of anti-Semitic harassment, violence, and vandalism in Canada during 2009. It also said that anti-Semitic incidents increased globally in 2009, linking them to a rise in [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Wednesday that the government can continue to hold indefinitely two Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainees, even though the men had been cleared for release by the Bush administration two years ago. Judge Gladys Kessler denied the petitions for habeas corpus filed by Fahmi [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Thursday convicted ex-army officer Ephrem Setako on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and murder and sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The tribunal found that Setanko, a lieutenant colonel in the Rwandan Army who was also head of the legal affairs division of the Ministry [...]
The Constitutional Court of Korea ruled Thursday that the death penalty does not violate the South Korean constitution . The court's 5-4 decision could lead to a reinstatement of the death penalty in South Korea, which has held an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment since former president Kim Dae-Jung took office in 1998. Kim, who [...]
Thomas Nash : "Future generations will remember 2010 as the year cluster bombs became illegal around the world. Following its swift ratification by 30 states, the Convention on Cluster Munitions – the most significant disarmament and humanitarian treaty in more than a decade – enters into force on August 1, establishing a new international legal [...]
The US Senate voted Wednesday night to authorize three key provisions of the USA Patriot Act set to expire on Sunday. The bill, passed by a voice vote, would allow federal authorities to conduct "roving" wiretaps, to compel the production of business, medical, and library records, and to track so-called "lone wolf" suspects who are [...]
UN Under-Secretary-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze on Wednesday praised the increasing number of countries that have suspended or abolished the death penalty . Speaking at the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva, Ordzhonikidze expressed hope that countries that have not abolished the death penalty would adopt the 2007 UN Resolution 62/149 , placing a [...]
The Venezuelan government is continuously violating basic human rights , particularly freedom of expression, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for the Organization of American States (OAS) said in a report released Wednesday. The Democracy and Human Rights in Venezuela report provides a detailed analysis on the state of human rights in the country, [...]
