Specter to open hearings on rights of Gitmo detainees News
Specter to open hearings on rights of Gitmo detainees

[JURIST] US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter [official website] opens hearings Wednesday on the legal rights of detainees [SJC agenda] held by the US at Guantanamo Bay. Part of the agenda for the hearings is to examine the due process rights of the prisoners and the authority held by Congress to make certain they receive the necessary legal representation. An aide to Specter says the Pennsylvania senator wants to investigate how to make the detention and interrogation process more transparent without negatively affecting national security. The hearing comes after reports of prisoner mistreatment [JURIST news archive], high-level calls for the facility's closure [JURIST report], and a 2004 Supreme Court ruling [Rasul v. Bush, PDF text] holding that detainees had the right to challenge their detentions in federal court. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.