Human Rights First

By Meg Roggensack and Marshall Thompson
Business and Human Rights

What investors should know ahead of Facebook's IPO.
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• Much of Facebook's IPO projected income depends on entry into China, a nation that is hostile to privacy and free expression. 
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By Ruthie Epstein
Refugee Protection Program

My drive back from Karnes County, Texas, to San Antonio, two weeks ago, was long and empty. Not long by Texas standards, true, but it took more than an hour - so, long for a non-profit or pro bono attorney to drive twice...

By Ruthie Epstein, Refugee Protection Program.

I've toured facilities all over the country, from rural Louisiana to rural Pennsylvania, from south Texas to Newark, New Jersey's "Chemical Corridor." They're surrounded by layers of high barbed wire fencing topped with concertina coils.

Fourteen times in the past two years, I've passed...

By: Julie Hysenaj

The Obama administration is considering exemptions for people who have been mislabeled "terrorists" under U.S. immigration laws. This is Julie's story.

Arben is from Kosovo. When I married him, he was applying for asylum in the United States. When he was told he had to...

Next week, I'll be on the ground in Guantanamo as Abd al Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri will be arraigned before a U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for his alleged role in the USS Cole bombing, the USS The Sullivans attempted bombing, and the bombing of a French civilian...

As revelations and speculations concerning the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, continue to play out in the media, some attention has turned to the U.S. asylum system because of allegedly dishonest claims his accuser made...

Adam Jacobson
Program Assistant, Law and Security

For the past two weeks, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has waged a campaign of fear and inaccuracy in an attempt to discredit our nation's federal courts and their ability to try terrorism suspects. He would rather have their trials in the flawed...

By Melina Milazzo
Pennoyer Fellow, Law and Security Program

Almost a decade after reports of death and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody at Abu Ghraib and other sites came to light, the prosecutor appointed to look into some of these serious, criminal allegations...

Melina Milazzo
Pennoyer Fellow, Law and Security

Once again, the Obama administration shirked its legal and moral responsibility to ensure torture victims are provided an enforceable remedy when it advised the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear a case brought by Iraqi detainees tortured by private military contractors...

By Winny Chen

U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman will head to the Sudan this week in an effort to stem renewed fighting between northern and southern forces. As the United States works with international partners to prevent the current crisis from escalating into another full-fledged civil war, it...

By Melina Milazzo
Pennoyer Fellow, Law and Security Program

Recent news that Blackwater founder and bad boy, Erik Prince, is creating an American-led mercenary army in the United Arab Emirates is a bleak reminder of how Blackwater became the poster child for the unaccountable, gun-slinging...

By Meg Roggensack; Senior Advisory, Business and Human Rights

With President Obama fresh off a visit to Facebook Headquarters in Silicon Valley for a town hall meeting on the role of social media in politics, the social networking company is considering investments in China, a country whose government wants social...

by Joe Navarro

Has the CIA been displaced from its rightful role as global terrorist jailer and interrogator, a shift that may make the United States less safe as a result? Those reading Ken Dilanian's recent Los Angeles Times story "CIA has slashed its terrorism interrogation role" may have...

By Gabor Rona
International Legal Director

Drone strikes conducted by the United States in Pakistan are an increasingly hot flash point in relations between the two countries. This week, a drone strike is reported to have killed approximately 40 people. The New York Times reports that it...

At 10:00 a.m. Thursday, in Courtroom 201 of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, a lawyer for the president who campaigned on the closure of Guantanamo and the end to the discredited military commissions will argue to the United States Court of Military Commission Review in support of the...

The International Community Should Condemn Attacks On African Migrants and Refugees in Libya and Urge Libyan Forces not to Block Departures

On Monday March 7, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed a steep drop in the number of individuals leaving...

"I have never been a member of al Qaeda or the Taliban." These are the words of Noor Uthman Muhammed, read to a panel of military commission members charged with helping decide his fate as he remains in Guantanamo, where he has been held for almost nine years. Referred to...

In theNew York Times, reporters James Glanz and John Markoff investigate the actions that led to Egypt's Internet shutdown from Jan 27 - Feb 2.  They argue that the primary targets of the Egyptian Government were the international fiber optic connections that connect Egypt with the rest of...

C. Dixon Osburn
Director, Law and Security

George W. Bush canceled a scheduled speech in Geneva on February 12 at a dinner in honor of the United Israel Appeal. Organizers say they canceled the speech, according to The Washington Post, because "the calls to demonstrate were sliding into...

By Meg Roggensack,
Senior Advisor, Business and Human Rights Program

Organizers of mass protests against repressive governments in Tunisia and Egypt relied on Facebook to get the word out. Photos of protestors in Egypt showed posters with Mark Zuckerberg as their hero. And then the government turned off the...