A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday ordered further review of a lower court decision to release Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Olud Slahi , allegedly linked to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The order vacated US District Court Judge James Robertson’s decision to release Slahi and [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Andrea Prasow, senior counter-terrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, says that despite purported safeguards, evidence from Omar Khadr’s guilty plea and sentencing hearing shows that detainees can still be harmed by statements they have made involuntarily… The Military Commissions Act of 2009, though an improvement over the Bush-era law governing military [...]

The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday declined to rule on a local ordinance banning the hiring, harboring or renting of property to illegal immigrants . The US District Court for the District of Nebraska had asked the court to decide whether Fremont Ordinance 5156 , which mandates that renters obtain a permit from the city [...]

A magistrate in Mombasa, Kenya, found 17 accused Somali pirates not guilty Friday, ruling that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The accused denied involvement in the 2009 attack on the ship the MV Amira. Their lawyer, Jared Magolo, said that the magistrate ruled that the prosecution had insufficient evidence [...]

The US government’s human rights record came under criticism Friday during the country’s first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) . Among the criticisms leveled at the US were the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the practice of rendition, the embargo of Cuba and the continued use of the [...]

A UK High Court in London began hearings Friday to determine whether abuse claims brought by 142 Iraqis against UK military personnel should be subject to public inquiry after Defence Secretary Liam Fox refused to open such an inquiry. The Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) group, which represents the Iraqis, submitted videos to support claims that [...]

Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Hassan Bubacar Jallow filed new applications Thursday for the referral of three cases for trial in Rwanda. The first was Jean-Bosco Uwinkindi , a former Rwandan pastor who pleaded not guilty in July to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity relating to the 1994 [...]

The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging the constitutionality of State Question 755 , which amends the state constitution to ban the use of Islamic or international law in state court decisions. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma , [...]

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) announced Thursday that he, along with 12 other state attorneys general, has filed an amici curiae brief before the US Supreme Court supporting an Arizona statute that imposes sanctions on employers that hire illegal immigrants . In Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting , the court will determine whether the [...]

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom vetoed legislation Thursday that would have reinstated the death penalty. Colom has stated that his government does not believe capital punishment improves a nation’s security and has called on the Guatemalan Congress to abolish capital punishment permanently. Legislative Decree 37-2010 would have reinstated the death penalty while reserving to the executive [...]