International and Foreign
3,187 Articles
Reforming The Section 702 Dragnet (Part 1)
The consensus is clear that spying on innocent Americans section 215 of the Patriot Act is flatly illegal. The Center for Democracy and Technology said it, Christopher Sprigman…
President Bashir Is No Michelangelo
Earlier this week, President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan, indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur, announced a “political…
Noor Khan: A missed opportunity?
Last week, the English Court of Appeal gave judgment in R (Noor Khan) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (full text). The claim was brought in an attempt…
UN Joint Special Representative for Syria Holds Press Conference
[UPDATE: What ended up being a very short press conference is now over, we will include a video when it is made available by the UN] Happening now, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN Joint…
GCHQ Surveillance Likely Illegal, Says Leading UK Barrister
In yesterday morning’s News Roundup, I noted that a leading lawyer in the UK has submitted legal advice to a parliamentary group concluding that mass surveillance programs conducted…
OSCE Launches New “Human Rights in Counter-Terrorism Investigations” Manual
Recently, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) launched a new practical manual for…
A $15 Million Dollar Torture Partnership
It has been common knowledge for a while that Poland hosted a secret CIA prison where Abd al Rahim al Nashiri and other prisoners now held in Guantánamo were detained and tortured. …
Horrific New Evidence of Syrian War Crimes Emerges
The Guardian has published a piece describing the emergence of disturbing new evidence of the commission of “industrial scale war crimes” in Syrian detention centers. …
A “Right to be Forgotten”
Readers may be interested in a past decision of the Italian Court of Cassation adjudicating whether former convicted terrorists have a “right to be forgotten.” The decision…
Yemen Immunity in Jeopardy?
The Yemeni press last week published a fascinating interview with Mohammed Al-Mekhlafi, the Minister of Legal Affairs of Yemen, who suggests that notwithstanding the existence…
Trials in Absentia Under International, Domestic and Lebanese Law
As a follow on to our backgrounder on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, one additional feature of the current proceedings is worthy of note: the trials are proceedings in absentia. …
Lebanon Tribunal Begins Work
As we’ve noted, in absentia proceedings have finally begun before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), a joint creation of the United Nations and Lebanon in The Hague…