New CRS reports and congressional hearings released

Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy (6 Oct. 2009)
Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa (2 Oct 2009)
Removing Aliens from the United States: Judicial Review of Removal Orders (25 September 2009)

The records of several noteworthy congressional hearings that were held in the past two years have been [...]

Intelligence community legal reference book

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence has declassified its Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book from which the US intelligence community ‘draws much of its authority and guidance’. Download the 949 pages here.

John Brennan on the US counterterrorism policy

Remarks by John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, As Prepared for Delivery “A New Approach to Safeguarding Americans, 6 August 2009. Read the speech here.
Interview with Brennan here. Comments in the LA Times and the WSJ.

Publication – Justice: The false promise of assurances against torture

This article by leading NGO Justice examines the British government’s use of assurances against ill-treatment in cases involving deportation on national security grounds to countries known for their use of torture. It considers the history of assurances in the context of extradition and deportation, examines the relevant Strasbourg case-law, then considers the various memoranda of [...]

US relies heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain terrorist suspects

The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to current and former American government officials in the New York Times.

Obama administration pushing Libya to clarify Al Libi’s death

Newsweek reports that the Obama Administration is pressing the Libyan government to explain the reported prison death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi.
“We want answers,” said an administration official familiar with the case, who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive matter. “We want to know what really happened here.”The U.S. official said, “It’s not in [...]

UK-Libya prisoner transfer treaty raises serious human rights concerns

The treaty is the first bilateral “no consent’ prisoner transfer arrangement the UK government ratifies after the Police and Justice Act 2006 removed the requirement in the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984 for the consent of a prisoner to transfer in each case. Basically the treaty goes even further than the practice of diplomatic assurances;it [...]

Pakistani ‘terror plot suspects’ to be deported rather than charged

Most of the Pakistani men arrested last week in an anti-terrorist operation will be deported to Pakistan with diplomatic assurances rather than charged, senior counter-terrorism sources told The Times. Operation Pathway, the codename for the inquiry, has already led to the resignation of Britain’s most senior anti-terrorist officer, Bob Quick, after he accidentally revealed details [...]

DC Circuit Court confirms broad detainee transfer power of government in Kiyemba v. Obama

(Scotus) The D.C. Circuit Court, in a compromise decision that opens the courts somewhat further to detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay but limits what courts can do in response, ruled on Tuesday that the government has broad authority to transfer prisoners to other countries.  The Executive Branch can do so, the Circuit Court indicated, without “second-guessing” [...]

ECHR Judgment in Ben Khemais vs Italy rejects reliance on diplomatic assurances again, finds violation of article 3

Judgment (in French) here.
In March 2006 the Italian Como District Court had ordered the deportation of Tunesian national Ben Khemais to Tunesia, where he was sentenced in absentia in 2002 by the Tunis Military Court to ten years’ imprisonment or membership of a terrorist organisation. That conviction was apparently based exclusively on the statements [...]