On November 14, 2006, a criminal complaint[1] was filed in a German court against senior U.S. officials, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former CIA Director George Tenet, high ranking military officers, and several former government lawyers alleging torture and war crimes at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp.
The recent conflict in Lebanon and Northern Israel, occurring between a state and a non-state armed opposition group on the territory of a state that has not itself taken up arms, raises distinct challenges for interpretation of international law related to armed conflict.
Allegations have appeared in news reports that the United States is holding some terrorism suspects incommunicado and without trial in detention centers at undisclosed locations outside the United States, perhaps in Eastern Europe. The United States government has not acknowledged the existence of any such detention facilities. The discussion below is based on facts regarding the possible existence of such facilities as reported in news media, and is not intended to vouch for their accuracy. The discussion is designed to point out the principal le
The Cartoons and Freedom of Expression
An Associated Press news release dated October 18, 2005, begins with the headline, "Gonzales Weighs in on International Law." The news release, with the headline, was picked up by several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun. The body of the article discussed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' view, expressed in a speech at George Mason University, that the U.S. Supreme Court should not consider foreign law in making its decisions.