The US government should investigate and, if necessary, prosecute private contractors for killing Iraqis without cause, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said in a report released Thursday. The UNAMI report warns the US that employing private contractors to provide security in high-tension areas impermissably blurs the distinction between civilians and military combatants [...]
A federal judge on Wednesday granted a temporary restraining order sought by two environmental advocacy groups to enjoin the Bureau of Land Management from building a 1.5 mile US-Mexico border fence over the San Pedro river until an appropriate environmental impact assessment is completed. US District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the US District Court [...]
Illinois pharmacists who morally object to dispensing Plan B, the "morning-after" pill, will be permitted to refuse to fill prescriptions for the drug but must work with another pharmacist by phone to dispense the contraceptive, under a settlement submitted to an Illinois legislative panel on Thursday. Pharmacists sued the state in 2005 after Governor Rod [...]
The US House Judiciary and Intelligence committees on Wednesday voted to advance the RESTORE Act of 2007 ("Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective Act of 2007") , introduced by House democrats on Tuesday, with several minor changes. The RESTORE Act would replace the temporary Protect America Act , signed in August, as [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law, former Chief Prosecutor for the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, announces the launch of Impunity Watch, a new online monitor of human rights abuses worldwide …. This op-ed was written with Cheryl G. Murphy, a 3L attending Syracuse University College of Law and [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Dr. Laurent Pech, Jean Monnet Lecturer in European Union Law at the National University of Ireland, Galway, says that the experience of France – and some principled reflections – should make the US House of Representatives think twice before adopting any resolution labelling the early twentieth-century killings of Armenians in the Ottoman [...]
Neil Hicks : "The brief detention of five foreign human rights activists who were attending a planned international meeting commemorating the work of Anna Politkovskaya in the provincial city of Nizhny Novgorod on October 6, 2007 should be seen as an escalation in official harassment and interference in the work of the independent human rights [...]
US District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction Wednesday blocking the implementation of new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulations intended to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to obtain US employment. The ruling follows Breyer's extension of a temporary restraining order blocking the implementation [...]
US military forces in Iraq released 60 detainees Wednesday as part of Operation Lion's Paw , an ongoing effort to increase the number of Iraqi detainees released daily to at least 50 during the month of Ramadan, which ends Saturday. Organized by the Iraqi government and the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I) , the program [...]
The US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday approved a resolution labeling the World War I-era killings of over one million Armenians by Turkish soldiers as genocide. The resolution now goes to the House floor, where a vote is expected in mid-November. US President George W. Bush expressed disappointment over the committee decision, worrying [...]
