David B. Rivkin, a legal expert and author, and Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of NYU’s Center on Law and Security, debate the appropriate venue for prosecuting “enemy combatants.”

The new secretary-general of the United Nations should make genocide prevention a centerpiece of his reform agenda, concludes a new Council Special Report. "Ban Ki-moon should take the General Assembly's endorsement of the responsibility to protect as a mandate and mission statement for the UN and build a reform program that is designed to implement it."

President Bush’s decision to press for more American troops in Iraq brought a significant increase in pressure directed at two of Iraq’s neighbors, Syria and Iran. With a second carrier-strike group en route, what lays ahead?  

The death of Saddam Hussein brings to a close one turbulent chapter in Iraq’s history. But his complicated relations with Washington portend challenging times ahead for U.S.-Iraqi diplomacy.

In January, Saddam Hussein is expected to be hanged, leaving Iraqis as divided as ever. His death may coincide with a major speech by President Bush on adjusting the war strategy in Iraq.

Augusto Pinochet, head of the military junta that led Chile in the 1970s and 1980s, died on Sunday. Pinochet set an international legal precedent when he was arrested in Britain for crimes against humanity committed in Chile.

Approximately 775 detainees have been held in Guantánamo since January 2002. As of late November 2006, some 345 had been released or transferred to around 26 different countries. The vast majority were never charged and are now at liberty. Some have been detained again. Others have faced harassment by the authorities. Amnesty International campaigned on behalf of some of the men who have been released from Guantánamo; in this report the organization highlights details of some of these cases.

In this summary of concerns Amnesty International argues that the operation of the detention centre at Guantánamo Bay symbolizes the US’s wider disregard of international law in its "war on terror". Amnesty argues that it is only the visible tip of the iceberg of indefinite and secret detentions, renditions and resort to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and says that secrecy surrounding detentions is dangerous for the prisoner, distressing for relatives, and detrimental to the rule of law.

Amnesty International’s summary of concerns that detainees at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have suffered ill-treatment amounting to torture under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. Amnesty alleges that many of those held at Guantánamo have been ill-treated, whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere prior to their transfer to Guantánamo, or during their transfer, or as part of the interrogation process at the base, or as a result of the isolating, indefinite and punitive nature of detention in Guantánamo.

Amnesty International’s proposed procedure for the closure of the detention centre at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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.

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.

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

The International Criminal Court looks set to begin its first-ever trial involving a case of child soldiers in the Congo, while in neighboring Uganda, calls for the Court to drop its indictments have called its authority into question.

Inaction in the face of genocide in Darfur breeds death in the region, but also contempt for international laws and voices which have demanded action—so far to no avail.