courts
742 Articles
UK Court Invalidates British Forces’ Afghan Detention Program
Today, the United Kingdom Court of Appeal handed down its judgement in Serdar Mohammed v Ministry of Defense. A case of great import for British detention policy in Afghanistan,…
The Government’s Overstated Rehearing Petition in al Bahlul
I wasn’t originally planning to blog about the petition for rehearing en banc filed by the government on Monday in al Bahlul v. United States, challenging the three-judge…
US Government Petitions for Rehearing En Banc (Again) in Al Bahlul
The petition is available here. This is not a terribly surprising development. But as I wrote after the panel decision, it’s also not likely to succeed, given the composition…
CIA and OLC Must Release More “Secret” Documents on Aulaqi Drone Strike
On Thursday, a federal district court in New York issued its latest ruling in the ACLU’s long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation seeking the legal and factual…
10 Questions about the UK Spying on Amnesty International
Yesterday, the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal informed Amnesty International that British intelligence agency GCHQ had spied on the human rights organization by intercepting…
Abu Ghraib and the Perversion of the Political Question Doctrine
I’ve written extensively about the important and complex legal questions raised by state-law tort suits against private military contractors, many of which have arisen in…
Britain’s Al-Saadoon Case: A Matter of Human Rights Law and the use of Military Force Overseas
In March, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales found that the United Kingdom’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) can be activated extraterritorially…
What al Bahlul Says, and What It Means
It’s going to take some time to fully work through the lengthy opinions handed down by the D.C. Circuit this morning in al Bahlul v. United States. But at the risk of…
al-Bahlul decided: Court invalidates military commission conviction for domestic-law offense
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by a 2-1 vote (Rogers and Tatel, Henderson dissenting) has overturned the conspiracy conviction on Article III grounds.…
Three Problems With Judge Brown’s Opinion in Tuaua
On Friday, I promised to write more about the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Tuaua v. United States, in which the three-judge panel (Brown, Silberman, & Sentelle, JJ.)…
D.C. Circuit Rejects Birthright Citizenship for American Samoans
This morning, the D.C. Circuit decided Tuaua v. United States, a case I previewed here back in February that raises the question of whether American Samoans are entitled to…
The apparent end of the “gag orders” for GTMO detainees
Back in February, I explained that the protective orders in two Military Commissions cases had been amended to now permit the defendants and their counsel to speak publicly about…