The Canadian government is trying to derail a lawsuit over whether the Canadian Army in Afghanistan is transferring custody of detainees to Afghan forces to face torture by bogging it down with a flurry of technical arguments, Amnesty International Canada said Thursday. Amnesty and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association brought complaints against the Canadian [...]

Former Argentinian coast guard officer Hector Febres went on trial Thursday on charges of kidnapping and torturing four people at the Navy Mechanics School during Argentina's Dirty War . If convicted, Febres faces life in prison. Last week, an Argentinean court sentenced former military chaplain Christian von Wernich to life imprisonment for participating in seven [...]

Israeli military Brigadier General Yair Golan received a reprimand Thursday after an investigation by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) into allegations that Golan improperly used Palestinians as human shields. Golan, commander of the West Bank army division, will not be promoted for at least the next nine months as part of his reprimand. According to [...]

The first military officer to face court-martial for aiding the enemy since the 2003 Iraq invasion was found not guilty Friday of aiding the enemy by providing a cellular phone to detainees. Former US military police commander Lt. Col. William Steele was convicted on three lesser charges of unauthorized possession of classified documents, failing to [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Anthony D'Amato of Northwestern University School of Law says that US Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey should acknowledge that waterboarding employed by US interrogators is torture, and not attempt to dodge the critical question… Former judge Michael B. Mukasey, nominated by President Bush to serve the United States as Attorney General, has [...]

Gary Mayerson : "While the 4-4 decision of the Supreme Court in Tom. F. creates no precedent except to continue the Second Circuit's underlying decision, it was clear from the arguments that one faction of the court was moved primarily if not solely by the obvious wealth of the plaintiff, and this dynamic was unfortunate, [...]

European Union (EU) leaders reached agreement on the text of a proposed EU Reform Treaty at a summit in Lisbon early Friday local time, working through last minute objections by Poland and Italy. Much of the summit focused on reservations by those countries; observers said that the treaty could have been defeated if they had [...]

US lawmakers apologized Thursday to Maher Arar , a Canadian engineer who was detained in the US in 2002 after flying to New York from Tunisia on his way home to Ottawa after a holiday and later deported to Syria, where he was tortured. Appearing by video before a joint hearing of the House Judiciary [...]

US Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey refused on the second day of his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday to say whether he considers "waterboarding" — a technique that induces the effects of being drowned — to be a form of torture. Mukasey , a retired federal judge who has presided over some of [...]

An employment non-discrimination bill protecting gays, lesbians, and bisexuals but not transgendered individuals has been sent to the full US House of Representatives for consideration after being approved by the House Education and Labor Committee Thursday. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act covers hiring and firing practices, the setting of compensation levels, and promotion determinations, and makes [...]