Sweden summons Iran diplomat over detentions and missile strike
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden issued a statement on Wednesday confirming the summoning of an Iranian diplomat to Stockholm. The move comes in response to the ongoing legal disputes between the two nations, particularly regarding the arbitrary detention of Swedish citizens in Iran and the recent missile strike on Erbil, Iraq. Sweden reiterated [...]
Marjorie Cohn is a professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California. She has authored publications arguing against the legality of the 2003 US military intervention in Iraq as well as the US-led NATO interventions into Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. Professor Cohn is also a national board member of Assange [...]
US Treasury imposes sanctions on Syria prisons, armed groups
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions on eight prisons run by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s intelligence unit for human rights abuses against political prisoners and other detainees. Additionally, OFAC also sanctioned Syrian armed group Ahrar al-Sharqiya and two of its leaders for abuses against civilians [...]
The Legal Possibility for Charging SEAL Eddie Gallagher with Perjury
It is well known that the United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (US SEALs) have serious problems. The SEAL community has been plagued by extreme drug use and sexual assaults and has been found to engage in the murder of one of their own Special Operations Forces (SOF) personnel. All of these incidences have [...]
ICC closes probe into UK war crimes in Iraq despite 'reasonable basis' to find they occurred
International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced Wednesday that she had decided to close a preliminary examination into alleged war crimes committed by members of the British Armed Forces in Iraq, despite confirming a “reasonable basis” to find that the crimes did occur. The prosecutor further announced she would not open an investigation. In January 2014 the [...]
Federal appeals court rejects release of Abu Ghraib photographs
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday that photographs of detainees taken by US military personnel can be withheld from release. In 2003 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the release of photographs depicting torture at military detention facilities in [...]
HRW: Iraq judges routinely disregard credible torture allegations
Iraqi judges routinely disregard allegations of torture by security forces against terrorism suspects and accept convictions credibly claimed to be the result of such tactics, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday. “Torture is rampant in Iraq’s justice system, yet judges lack instructions for responding to torture allegations,” said HRW deputy Middle East director Lama Fakih. The [...]
Here's the international legal news we covered this week: A group of five UN Human Right's experts on Friday asked Egypt to halt all pending executions following repeated allegations of unfair trials. The experts are concerned with a...
Here's the domestic legal news we covered this week: The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest Thursday on behalf of two conservative student groups at the University of California, Berkeley who are suing...
Iraq's Interior Ministry has launched an investigation into human rights violations carried out against civilians by special forces while fighting the Islamic State (IS) in Mosul. The allegations were initially reported by...
