JURIST Guest Columnist Chibli Mallat, visiting professor at Princeton University and the EU Jean Monnet Professor in Law at St. Joseph's University in Beirut, Lebanon, says that Iraq's constitutional response to pluralism may yet make it an example to the world… Criticism of post-invasion Iraq has become a cottage industry; at latest count there are [...]

The US State Department has rejected Britain's latest call for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, saying the prison would remain open as long as necessary and was needed to house "some very dangerous people." UK Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett on Thursday called for Guantanamo's closure because of its record on human rights [...]

The US Department of Defense (DOD) labeled anti-war activities as "potential terrorist activity" and monitored students, Quakers and other anti-war groups while collecting information for a domestic terror threats database, according to documents released Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union . The documents, obtained from the DOD under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit [...]

2006 Report on Human Rights, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, October 12, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Reconnaissance du genocide armenien de 1915, French National Assembly, October 12, 2006 . Read the full text of the bill. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Three Canadian citizens supported by Amnesty International Canada demanded an official inquiry into their cases Thursday along the lines of that undertaken for Maher Arar to determine what role Canadian security forces played in their arrest and alleged torture in Syria between 2001 and 2004. Kuwaiti-born Ahmad El Maati, Syrian-born Abdullah Almalki and Iraqi-born Muayyed [...]

Sixteen Afghan men were reunited with their families Thursday after being released by the US military from four years of detention in Guantanamo Bay . The men denied links to Islamic terror groups and alleged abuse at the hands of their captors as they spoke at the offices of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission [...]

Sixteen states have in recent years made it easier for convicted felons to vote, according to new report by The Sentencing Project . Lifetime voting bans in Iowa , Nebraska, and New Mexico have been lifted, and nine additional states have made voting easier for freed prisoners and those merely on probation. An exception to [...]

Moroccan-born Mounir al-Motassadeq , who was convicted by a German court last year for his involvement with the Sept. 11 attacks , could face a third trial, a judge in Germany's highest court of appeals said Thursday. Though Motassadeq was convicted last year, both the prosecution and defendant filed appeals, and Motassadeq was released on [...]

As many as 80 Guantanamo Bay detainees could face trial before military commissions, a US State Department legal adviser said Thursday. John Bellinger also said President Bush will sign Congress' recently-passed military commissions bill , on Tuesday, allowing military commission trials "finally to go forward." AP has more. In a related development, US military officials [...]