Amnesty International’s summary of the names and nationalities of all known detainees at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Amnesty International’s summary of the scale of detentions at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Amnesty International’s timeline summary of detentions at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In this report Amnesty International says that thousands of women have been raped in Sudan and Chad since the armed conflict began in Darfur in 2003. There have certainly been thousands. The names of 250 women who had been raped, and harrowing information about their cases, were recorded by Amnesty International on a 10-day visit to just three refugee camps in Chad in 2004. Recent months have seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of rapes as Darfur has been plunged into new fighting. In just one camp in Darfur, Kalma camp, the International Rescue Committee reported that rapes of women rose from under four to 200 a month during five weeks in July and August 2006. Overall, despite  the presence of an African Union peacekeeping force (African Union Mission in Sudan, AMIS) and international awareness of what is happening in Darfur, in 2006 rapes and other violence against women and girls have increased, not diminished.

Cluster bombs made news after last summer’s war between Israel and Hezbollah, but efforts to curb their use remain grounded.

A global push is underway to ban cluster bombs after their use in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo, has left hundreds of noncombatants maimed or dead.

A new law signed by President Bush allows terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay to be tried by secret military commissions. But critics say the bill violates the laws of war.

This briefing summarizes Amnesty International’s assessment of and concerns about violations of international humanitarian law by Hizbullah in its attacks on northern Israel in July and August 2006.

This report from Human Rights Watch documents what the organization describes as serious violations of international humanitarian law by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print.

Abraham D. Sofaer, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, discuss the merits of capital punishment in trying dictators and other war criminals in this CFR Online Debate.

The State Department official in charge of addressing human rights issues, Assistant Secretary Barry Lowenkron, tells cfr.org a number of states fear the proposed UN Human Rights Council, which will seek to enforce international human rights law. As the council debate continues, Washington has also issued its annual report on human rights performance, drawing charges from a number of states of U.S. hypocrisy.

The fifty-three articles in this United Nations treaty outline every human's right to self determination and protection under the law, and are part of the International Bill of Human Rights. After more than twenty years of preparatory negotiations and resolutions, the covenant was signed on December 16, 1966 and it entered into force March 23, 1976.

The United States presented these reservations at its signing of the Geneva Convention on August 12, 1949.

The Geneva Conventions are a set of treaties regarding humanitarian issues of civilians and combatants in wartime. There are four Geneva Conventions, last revised in 1949, and three additional Protocols - two from 1977, and one from 2005.