The US House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on Thursday heard testimony on the state secrets privilege in advance of consideration of the State Secret Protection Act that would reform the assertion of the privilege. Asa Hutchinson , formerly a Republican member of Congress from Arkansas, director of the [...]
Rights groups on Thursday called for Russia to enforce European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgments regarding human rights violations in Chechnya . Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Memorial Human Rights Center and Russian Justice Initiative expressed concerns that the Russian government is not acknowledging the 104 ECHR judgments condemning their refusal to properly investigate [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism has laid out plans to establish a global tribunal to prosecute private companies accused of human rights abuses. In an interview last week with the Commonwealth Secretariat , Dr. Martin Scheinin said that his proposed "World Court of Human Rights" would enforce judgments on multinational companies [...]
North Korean state media outlet Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced Thursday that the Pyongyang Central Court has begun the trial of two US journalists . Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested in March for allegedly crossing into North Korea while reporting on North Korean refugees in China for Current TV . Ling and [...]
The Council of the European Union agreed Thursday on parameters for the acceptance of released Guantanamo Bay detainees by European Union (EU) member states. The council concluded that those member states that are willing to receive released detainees should only accept those who are cleared for release, do not face prosecution in the US, and [...]
Human rights and democracy advocates on Thursday called on the Chinese government to investigate the 1989 uprising in Beijing's Tiananmen Square , to release people imprisoned in connection with the uprising and human rights advocacy, to provide an accurate count of those killed in the governments response to the uprising, and to accept the reforms [...]
The president of the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden , the highest court in the Netherlands, on Thursday called for a code of conduct for politicians limiting their public statements on court rulings, after comments he says have undermined the judiciary's role. Geert Corstens said in a television interview that increasingly open criticism of judicial rulings [...]
A federal judge on Wednesday upheld a federal statute that gave immunity to telecom companies from liability associated with assisting the National Security Agency (NSA) with eavesdropping, dismissing 46 lawsuits against the telecom industry. Additionally, the judge granted an injunction against five states, ordering state officials to cease their investigations into wiretapping activities. The injunctions [...]
JURIST Special Guest Columnist Asa Hutchinson, former US Congressman (R-AR), DEA director, DHS under secretary for Border and Transportation Security and currently a member of the Constitution Project's Liberty and Security Committee, says that while President Obama's stated intent to limit executive invocations of the state secrets privilege is welcome, Congress should nonetheless enact legislation [...]
US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that the US government will begin to enforce immigration policy more strictly by targeting employers directly , rather than through continued use of controversial workplace raids. While attending a roundtable discussion at the Aspen Institute , a public policy think tank, Napolitano added that [...]
