torture
389 Articles

“Techniques that I believe and I think any fair-minded person would believe were torture”: Redacted CIA report summary now in the hands of the SSCI–What next? [UPDATED]
[UPDATED August 2] The President announced yesterday that the Executive branch has now provided to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence a partially declassified version…

The Accountability Matrix Widens: Torture, Black Sites and the European Convention
Long awaited decisions by the European Court of Human Rights emerged last week (initially reported here) that substantially address torture and the complicity of European states…

Fourth Circuit Holds Abu Ghraib Torture Claims Not Barred by Kiobel
Although it will likely be overtaken by the news set to come out of the Supreme Court later this morning, the Fourth Circuit has handed down a very big decision in the ongoing…

Status of CIA Detention and Interrogation Program Declassification (updated)
A few weeks ago I posted about three contexts in which the government is engaged in declassification efforts concerning the CIA’s former detention and interrogation program. …

A Second Chance for the Obama Administration on “Battlefield” Contractor Liability
One of the stranger briefs filed by the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration was the brief filed in response to the Supreme Court’s request (“CVSG”)…

Jones: End of the road
Yesterday, June 3, the Grand Chamber issued a notice “Grand Chamber Panel’s Decisions” which notes that a request for referral to the Grand Chamber has been rejected in the…

What You Should Know–and Why You Should Care–About the Latest Guantánamo Litigation
It’s been well over three years since Linda Greenhouse, writing for the New York Times, attributed the Supreme Court’s refusal to take any new cases from Guantánamo…

Force Feeding at Guantanamo and Judge Gladys Kessler
In his commencement address at West Point on May 28, President Obama said, “What makes [America] exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law,…

UN Torture Committee seeks further answers from Lithuania on involvement in CIA detention and rendition
Last week, the UN Committee against Torture adopted its Concluding Observations [full text] on Lithuania’s third periodic report on its compliance with the Convention against…

Declassification of the CIA interrogation program: Developments on three fronts
Last month I published a post setting forth the state of play regarding the declassification and disclosure of the executive summary, and findings and conclusions, of the Senate…

Backgrounder: Preliminary Examination into Abuses by United Kingdom Personnel in Iraq
As we reported earlier, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor has reopened the preliminary examination into crimes committed by United Kingdom personnel in Iraq from 2003-2008 during…

Preview: Lithuania to Face Questioning by UN Committee against Torture about “Black Sites”
On Monday, the UN Committee against Torture (“the Committee” or “the CAT Committee”) will review Lithuania’s third periodic report on its compliance with the Convention…