1 December 2009 – The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) yesterday briefed the members of the UN Security Council on the impact of counter-terrorism policies on human rights and on ways to re-affirm and integrate human rights into the UN, and in particular the Security Council’s response to terrorism.
19 November 2009 – The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, (a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)), today condemned the decision of the Damascus Section of the Syrian Bar Association to prohibit lawyer and leading human rights defender Muhannad Al-Hassani from practicing law for the rest of his life. Among the grounds upon which the disbarment was ordered was that Muhannad Al-Hassani is “the President of an unauthorised organisation (the Syrian Organization for Human Rights)”.
U.S. | Broader Mandate for Prosecutor Essential to Achieve Accountability
26 August 2009 – The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) today welcomed the decision of United States Attorney General Eric Holder to mandate Assistant US Attorney John Durham to “conduct a preliminary review into whether [US] laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations.”
U.S. | President Obama Signals Continuation of Detention Without Trial
22 May 2009 – The ICJ expressed alarm today at the plans of the Obama administration to continue and regularize a scheme of indefinite detention without trial that has been emblematic of the worst US abuses in its counter terrorism programs since 11 September 2001.
18 May 2009 – “Reviving Military Commissions is a setback for the rule of law. It will entrench a fundamentally flawed system with some amendments and set a terrible precedent to the rest of the world”, said Wilder Tayler, Acting ICJ Secretary General. “We need a clear break with the past and the laws and policies grounded in the ill-conceived concept of a ‘war on terror’.”
1 April 2009 – The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) welcomed the decision of President Obama’s administration to seek a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, announced on 31 March 2009.
26 February 2009 – This week the Eminent Jurists Panel, an independent body of experts convened by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), will present the results of a worldwide investigation into the impact of counter-terrorism laws and practices on human rights in Washington D.C.. The report Assessing Damage, Urging Action is the result of a three-year investigation that draws on sixteen hearings covering forty countries in all regions of the world.
