international law

Restoring America's Rights Record: Memo to the President-Elect

America's human rights record has been badly tarnished by seven years of abuse by the Bush Administration in its conduct of the war on terror, particularly as regards U.S. policy towards detainees. The United States has been criticized before the Torture Committee, the Human Rights Committee, the Inter American Commission, the European Parliament, many national courts and Parliaments and the international press. What should the new administration do to set matters right?

Posted in guantanamo, international law, torture

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 12, 2008
1:38 PM

CONTACT: Human Rights Watch (HRW)

ICC: Members Should Confront Critics and Increase Cooperation

Ten Years on, Use Annual Meeting to Support and Strengthen the Court

THE HAGUE - November 12 - International Criminal Court (ICC) member countries should speak up to support the court's independence and mandate during their annual meeting beginning November 14, 2008, Human Rights Watch said today. They should also pledge increased international cooperation on arrest warrants and should resolve to carry out arrests in the coming year. The ICC has made considerable progress in five years of operation, but has yet to hold its first trial. It is expected that the first trial will get underway in 2009.

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Posted in international law

Secret Order Lets US Raid Al Qaeda in Many Countries

WASHINGTON - The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

Posted in foreign policy, international law

No Charges but US May Never Release Guantánamo Chinese

Seventeen Chinese prisoners who have been held for nearly seven years in Guantánamo Bay will be informed on Monday that they could spend the rest of their lives behind bars, even though they face no charges and have been told by a judge they should be freed.

No country is willing to accept them and the US justice department has now blocked moves for them to be allowed to go to the US mainland, where they had been offered a home by refugee and Christian organisations.

Posted in guantanamo, international law

The End of International Law?

$Syrians mourn their killed relatives in the village of Sukkiraya, on the Syria-Iraq border. US forces in Iraq staged a \"successful\" raid into Syria against foreign fighters, an American official said Monday, as a furious Damascus accused Washington of \"terrorist aggression.\" (AFP/Ramzi Haidar)$

A parallel new Bush doctrine is emerging, in the last days of the soon-to-be-ancien regime, and it needs to be strangled in its crib. Like the original Bush doctrine -- the one that Sarah Palin couldn't name, which called for preventive military action against emerging threats -- this one also casts international law aside by insisting that the United States has an inherent right to cross international borders in "hot pursuit" of anyone it doesn't like.

They're already applying it to Pakistan, and this week Syria was the target. Is Iran next?