[JURIST] The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board created by the US Congress in December 2004 implementing a recommendation [CRS backgrounder] from the 9/11 Commission [official website] will finally begin to function later this month when the Board's five members are sworn in at the White House and convene their first session, according to Newsweek magazine Sunday. In association with its counter-terrorism recommendations, the 9/11 Commission final report [PDF] called for the creation of "a board within the executive branch to oversee adherence to guidelines on, and the commitment to defend, civil liberties by the federal government." The first nominations for the board were not made until June 2005, however, and the President's FY 2006 budget [text] contained no requests for funds for the panel. 9/11 Commission chairman Thomas Kean [official profile] has called the delay "outrageous", emphasizing its need at a time of ever- increasing executive powers, and claims that the White House and congressional leaders have denied the board basic tools and limited its scope. In December, Kean and 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton gave the Bush administration a "D" for its lack of support of the board in the context of a more general and largely negative report card [PDF] on the government's response to 9/11 Commission recommendations. The composition of and structure of the board has also been criticized by legal experts and rights groups. A bipartisan group of 23 members of Congress - led by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) - last week urged the administration [letter, PDF] to give the board adequate resources and support legislation to broaden its powers.

President Bush has nominated [press release] Carol Dinkins [firm profile], a Texas lawyer and former senior Justice Department official, as board chairman. The panel is expected to address issues such as the domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive], the Patriot Act [JURIST news archive], and Pentagon data mining. Newsweek has more.

[JURIST] Lawmakers on Sunday urged an overhaul of the US government investment review process that approved the takeover [JURIST report] by United Arab Emirates-owned Dubai Ports World [corporate website] of operating rights at several United States ports. The current process is overseen by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) [committee website], under the US Treasury Department. Senate Homeland Security Chairman Susan Collins (R-ME) [official website] and Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) [official website] plan to introduce a bill putting the Department of Homeland Security [official website] in charge. Sen. Collins recently said there are significant shortcomings [press release] in the CFIUS process.

The controversial takeover of port operations [JURIST news archive] by DP World has been criticized [JURIST report] by members of Congress from both parties who say that the government is risking national security. The takeover is also the subject of legal actions in the US [JURIST report] and the UK [JURIST report]. President Bush has said that the deal [CFIUS backgrounder] does not place Americans in any danger but has agreed to underatke a further 45-day review. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A new report from Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] concludes that the arbitrary detention of thousands of people in Iraq [JURIST news archive] facilitates abuses of prisoners. Using official figures from the Multi-National Force in Iraq [official website], AI says there are more than 14,000 security detainees in coalition custody - mostly at Camp Bucca [JURIST news archive] and Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive] - but many are detained "without being charged or tried and without the right to challenge their detention before a judicial body." The report claims that coalition forces are depriving detainees of human rights guaranteed in international law and standards such as the Geneva Conventions [reference guide] and that even Iraqi authorities are using torture and mistreating detainees. Calling the human rights situation in Iraq "dire," the report states that "the deployment of US-led forces in Iraq and the armed response that engendered has resulted in thousands of deaths of civilians and widespread abuses amid the ongoing conflict."

AI has called for "urgent, concrete steps" to protect detainees from ill-treatment which includes investigations into abuse and disciplinary actions against those found to have "used, ordered, or acquiesced" in torture. AFP has more.

9:47 AM ET 3/06/06 - Amnesty's report, Beyond Abu Ghraib: Detention and torture in Iraq [text], is now available along with a press release.

[JURIST] In a speech [text] to the East Tennessee Economic Council, US National Nuclear Security Administration [official website] head Linton Brooks [official profile], has publicly acknowledged for the first time the Bush administration's intent to abandon "nuclear disarmament." Brooks said Friday that the goal of complete nuclear disarmament will no longer be an active component of US foreign policy as the US turns its attention to the development of more reliable nuclear warheads:

The United States will, for the foreseeable future, need to retain both nuclear forces and the capabilities to sustain and modernize those forces. I do not see any chance of the political conditions for abolition arising in my lifetime, nor do I think abolition could be verified if it were negotiated.

[JURIST] The Sudanese government has threatened to withdraw from the African Union (AU) [official website] if a proposed takeover [JURIST report] of the AU's peacekeeping mission in the Darfur region [JURIST news archive] by the United Nations goes into effect. The Sudan Tribune Saturday quoted a spokesman for the Sudanese Ministry for Foreign Affairs [official website, English] as saying, "We will resist this attempt and respond strongly to it even if that leads to the withdrawal from the AU and the review of Sudan’s membership in the African organization." The threat comes just before a scheduled March 10 meeting of AU officials to discuss future troop deployments in the region.

In January, the AU issued a report [PDF text] which described the AU's limited peacekeeping resources and discussed a possible handover to the UN at an appropriate time. UN officials have been pushing [JURIST report] for a UN-led Darfur peacekeeping mission, which has thusfar been strongly opposed by the Sudanese government [JURIST report]. The Sudan Tribune has local coverage.

[JURIST] Leaders of the both the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches have sharply criticized the US prison at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] as international pressure builds to close down the controversial facility that currently contains almost 500 individuals the US government has termed enemy combatants. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams [official profile], the English head of the worldwide Anglican communion that includes the Episcopal Church in the United States, called Guantanamo "an extraordinary legal anomaly" Sunday in a BBC interview, echoing language previously used [JURIST report] by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. He added, "Any message given that any state can just override some of the basic habeas corpus-type provisions is going to be very welcome to tyrants elsewhere in the world, now and in the future," apparently referring to US government contentions [JURIST report] that the Constitution does not guarantee aliens held by the US abroad a right to habeas corpus. Williams' statement follows even more direct criticism of the US leveled by Archbishop of York John Sentamu, the number-two cleric in the Church of England, who last week slammed [ACNS release] Blair's language and Guantanamo in no uncertain terms:

This is not an anomaly. By “declaring war on terror” President Bush is perversely applying the rules of engagement which apply in a war situation. But the prisoners are not being regularly visited by the Red Cross or Red Crescent, which is required by the Geneva Convention. They were not even allowed to be interviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Group.

In Uganda President Amin did something similar: he did not imprison suspects because he knew that in prison the law would apply to them, so he created special places to keep them. If the Guantanamo Bay detainees were on American soil, the law would apply. This is a breach of international law and a blight on the conscience of America.

[JURIST] US District Judge John Gleeson [official profile] Friday temporarily stayed an injunction that would have changed New York's unique system of nominating its elected state trial court judges in political conventions [NY Election Law s. 6-106, PDF] rather than primaries. Gleeson ruled [PDF] in January that the practice of nominating judges to the New York Supreme Court [Wikipedia backgrounder] was unconstitutional because voters were denied the opportunity to participate. Critics of the old nomination process have long argued that it amounts to patronage that shuts out candidates not close to political party bosses.

The January ruling required that judges be nominated by primary elections until the state legislature could enact a new nominating system, but state election officials said there was not enough time for candidates to circulate nominating petitions before elections later this year. All parties have agreed to the stay. AP has more.