In an interview on the Fox News Channel Wednesday, US Vice President Dick Cheney said that while he may be called as a witness in the CIA leak case and therefore could not comment specifically on it, he does have authority under executive order to declassify government secrets. The comment has increased speculation that Cheney's [...]

Recently released photographs and video showing the apparent abuse of prisoners by US personnel at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison show clear violations of international humanitarian law, a spokeswoman for International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Thursday. The previously unpublished images , shown on Australian television Wednesday, were taken around the same time as [...]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov Wednesday told the Duma , Russia's lower house, that Russian society was to blame for instances of military conscript abuse and hazing that have scandalized the country. He particularly faulted television and the media for contributing to a "decline of traditional values" and pointed to a "culture of abuse" that [...]

The European Union (EU) is voicing reservations about human rights in Belarus in the wake of a growing number of reports of abuses there. At the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Austrian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Hans Winkler commented that next month's elections in the country are unlikely to bring "sweeping change" and [...]

Microsoft responded Wednesday to European Commission (EC) complaints of non-compliance with orders from a 2004 EC antitrust ruling to produce technical data by insisting in a 75-page report that the EC had ignored significant evidence relating to the release of source code material. The software giant accuses the EC of contributing to the problems by [...]

Report on the Effective Respect for Human Rights in France, Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe, February 15, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: Draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in force of sections 1 to 9) Order 2006, UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights, February 13, 2006 . Read the text of the report . Reported in JURISTs Paper Chase here.

The US Department of Justice has opened an internal investigation into its role in the domestic surveillance program approved by President Bush, Rep. Maurice Hinchey said Wednesday. Counsel for DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed that an investigation had been started in response to requests by four House members into the DOJ's role in approving [...]

Congressional Democrats on Wednesday introduced legislation that would roll back some of the limited liability provisions for vaccine and drug manufacturers in times of public health or bioterror emergency. A group of 21 US Senate and House Democrats led by Sen. Eedward Kennedy (D-MA) said in a letter describing the proposed Responsible Public Readiness and [...]

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has been petitioned to force the country's government to bring an action in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against countries where cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been published. A Pakistani lawyer filed the petition Tuesday, arguing that the government had failed to meet its duty of referring the [...]