Israel has not shown that it will conduct a thorough and impartial investigation of alleged war crimes during the January 2009 Gaza conflict , Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Sunday. HRW said that it met with lawyers from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) , but it did not receive information concerning how Israel was looking [...]

Pakistan will begin to revise its blasphemy laws later this year, a government official told the Agence France-Presse Sunday. Pakistan's Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti said he has been speaking to various political parties in Pakistan and that his government is committed to doing away with laws that are discriminatory to minorities. Bhatti [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday urged the US Supreme Court to dismiss as moot an appeal filed by Chinese Muslim Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay . The court granted certiorari in the case, known as Kiyemba I , in October to determine whether it is within the power of the judicial branch [...]

Iraqi leaders on Saturday urged the country's Supreme Court to rule on the recent electoral appeals panel decision allowing about 500 candidates who had been banned for alleged ties to the outlawed Baath party to run in the March 7 parliamentary elections. The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) has turned to the Iraq Supreme Court [...]

Andrea Prasow : "On February 1, 2010, Maher Arar asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that he cannot sue federal officials for damages even though they allegedly conspired with Syrian officials to subject him to torture in Syria. A powerful dissent by Judge Guido Calabresi in the Second Circuit's en [...]

Lisa Haugaard : "The United States and the international community's response to the Haitian earthquake must not only be generous, long-term and sustainable. It must also respect and promote rights. To "rebuild with rights," a starting place might be considering these principles. Recovery should be Haitian-led. It should be designed and implemented with the leadership [...]

The head of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) Friday reassured the Lebanese public that the investigation is on track. When asked about the progress of the investigation into the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , the head of the STL underlined the fact that the Tribunal already has in place all [...]

A US federal court Friday ordered a final judgment of $22 million against Charles Emmanuel "Chuckie" Taylor, Jr." to be paid to five torture victims. Charles was charged with torture while he was in charge of Liberia's Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU). The order issued by the judge outlined: the multiple forms of torture; cruel, inhuman, or [...]

A federal judge ruled Thursday that a lawsuit that accuses Chiquita Brands International Inc. of assisting Marxist rebels who killed Colombian missionaries may go forward. The suit was brought by family members of five North American missionaries who had worked for the New Tribes Mission (NTM) in South America and were killed in separate incidents [...]

Center for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International v. Kenya, African Commission on Human and People's Rights, February 4, 2010 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on the Kenyan government.