British Justice Secretary Jack Straw on Tuesday vetoed a British Information Tribunal order for the release of redacted minutes of two Cabinet discussions from the months prior to the invasion of Iraq . Straw declared that the public interest in keeping Cabinet meetings secret outweighed the benefits of disclosure: Serious and controversial decisions must be [...]
Amnesty International (AI) on Wednesday urged the Guatemalan Congress to approve a law establishing a National Search Commission for the Persons Forcibly and Involuntarily Disappeared. The proposed legislation was presented to the Guatemalan Congress in January 2007, and was an important part of a 1999 report by the Commission for Historical Clarification. Prompted by the [...]
A Paris appeals court on Tuesday overturned the 2007 terrorism convictions of five French citizens who had been questioned by French officials while detained at Guantanamo Bay . The court held that counter-terrorism agents from the French national security service DST could not gather intelligence and conduct a criminal investigation at the same time. The [...]
US President Barack Obama urged sweeping reform of the American financial regulatory system in a speech on his economic revitalization plan to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. His address, which came less than a week after he signed into law the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) , focused on job [...]
The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon will begin work on March 1, according to the Tribunal's Registrar, Robin Vincent . The March 1 start date for the court, established at the request of the Lebanese government after the February 14, 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , will coincide with the scheduled [...]
La Shawn Barber : "U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder essentially called white Americans cowards for not talking enough about race. Holder, who obviously didn't let anything prevent him from succeeding, believes the nation should have one of those honest "dialogues" on race. The question is, where does Mr. Holder think we should begin the dialogue? [...]
The US Supreme Court decided three cases Tuesday. The Court ruled 7-2 in United States v. Hayes that a federal gun law that prohibits anyone convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing a firearm does not require that a domestic relationship between an attacker and victim be a specific element of the crime. Hayes, a [...]
US Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers on Monday asked the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to revisit a January decision in which a three-judge panel ruled that indefinite civil commitment of "sexually dangerous" offenders was unconstitutional. The DOJ now seeks an en banc ruling on the case, and is disputing the panel's [...]
US Attorney General Eric Holder visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison on Monday as part of a Department of Justice (DOJ) review of the suspended military commission system established to try the detainees. During his visit, Holder reviewed cases against specific detainees, toured the facilities which had housed the military commission proceedings, and was joined [...]
The US Department of Defense Monday officially released its anticipated report on detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay in compliance with President Barack Obama's January 22 executive order mandating the review . As expected, the report concluded that conditions at the prison "are in conformity with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions." The report made [...]
