International Committee of the Red Cross President Jakob Kellenberger said Thursday that certain provisions of the newly-signed Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) are too vague and could weaken protections guaranteed under the Geneva Conventions . In an interview , Kellenberger expressed particular concern with the Act's broad definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" and the [...]
The New York State Supreme Court Thursday ordered former New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard A. Grasso to pay back a major portion of the compensation paid to him while he held that position between 1995 and 2003. Justice Charles E. Ramos held that Grasso "failed in duty" to keep the other directors appraised of [...]
David Becker : "Last week Missouri's Supreme Court, with only one justice dissenting, upheld long-standing constitutional and legal principles in striking down Missouri's restrictive voter ID law. Though the state claimed that the law was necessary to combat alleged voter impersonation fraud, the facts were undisputed that voter impersonation fraud is not a problem in [...]
A Superior Court of Ontario judge Thursday threw out part of a secrecy law invoked to search a reporter's home for the source of the story she published on Maher Arar . Juliet O'Neill , a journalist with the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, had her home raided in 2004 after she published a story in 2003 [...]
Jon Greenbaum : "Since the 2004 election, one disturbing trend in election law has been the enactment of laws requiring voters to provide government-issued voter identification in order to cast ballot or documentation of citizenship in order to register. These laws, which have been enacted in Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri, have the impact of [...]
The US Defense Department Office of the Inspector General has concluded that the US military's use of a propaganda program in Iraq was legal, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday. While the program involved planting and paying for favorable news about US operations in Iraqi newspapers, the IG report – not yet publicly available – concludes [...]
The US District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday denied an emergency motion to prevent the US military from surrendering translator and accused kidnapper Mohammad Munaf, a US citizen, to Iraqi officials to face the death penalty. Munaf was convicted and sentenced to death by an Iraqi judge after being arrested in Romania [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed for the first time Thursday that Hezbollah used cluster bombs during the recent conflict with Israel. According to HRW: International humanitarian law (the laws of war) obliges warring parties to distinguish between combatants and civilians (the principle of distinction) and, when attacking legitimate military targets, to ensure that the military [...]
A massive demonstration attended by thousands of people protesting the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez clogged the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina on Wednesday. The protest represents the third time such a demonstration has taken place since the 77-year-old witness went missing last month after testifying against a former police official sentenced last month to [...]
Four US Army soldiers have been ordered to face court-martial for allegedly murdering Iraqi detainees in Thar Thar, a town near Samarra, some 60 miles north of Baghdad. Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard and Spc. Juston R. Graber allegedly released several detainees after a May 9 raid [...]
