East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta Friday declined what he described as an offer to become the next UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, despite having told parliament last week that he had accepted the position. Ramos-Horta said he changed his mind because resigning from the presidency would force new elections to be held within 90 [...]
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JURIST Guest Columnist Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says that in the face of disconcertedly-vague and incomplete recollections by Cheney chief of staff David Addington and former DOJ lawyer John Yoo, other officials who witnessed the development of the Bush administration's torture policies should stand up for justice and tell [...]
Belarusian online news services and journalist organizations have denounced a proposed new law that would restrict online press freedom by requiring news services to register with the government. The House of Representatives of Belarus' National Assembly approved the "On Mass Media" law Tuesday after its second reading. Belarusian online news sources Wednesday posted black banners [...]
US President George W. Bush Thursday announced plans to remove North Korea from a State Department list of terror sponsors . The move comes after the North Korean government presented China with a detailed report outlining its nuclear energy and weapons programs, in accordance with international efforts to end its nuclear ambitions. Other sanctions against [...]
Officials from the UK Government Equalities Office (GEO) introduced a new equality bill Thursday designed to combat discrimination based on age or gender. Equalities Minister Harriet Harman told the House of Commons that 40 years of anti-discrimination laws have not sufficiently reduced inequality in the UK: This package will see us make further progress towards [...]
Amnesty International marked International Day in Support of Victims of Torture by protesting in front of the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday. The protest criticized European Union states for failing to condemn alleged abuses in countries like the United States and Tunisia, warning that many governments were using the threat of terrorism as a [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) improperly destroyed recordings of agent interviews with terror suspect Adil Charkaoui , but the justices refused to stop Charkaoui's extradition to Morocco. The Court found that the loss of evidence hampered judicial review: As things stand, the destruction by CSIS officers [...]
A Canadian Federal Court judge ruled Wednesday that the government must release evidence to Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr that could assist in his defense. The decision followed last month's Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Khadr had the right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to see confidential documents and videos compiled [...]
India's National Human Rights Commission should create a special department to investigate deaths in police custody, the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) said in a Wednesday report . The report found that over 7,000 people, many of whom were allegedly tortured, have died in the custody of Indian police between 2002 and 2007. ACHR [...]
The US House voted 402-17 to approve the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008 Wednesday. The bill makes it easier for employees with mental or physical handicaps to prove they are victims of workplace or hiring discrimination. Bill co-sponsor Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that the new legislation closed gaps in the law that [...]
