UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer issued a statement Dec. 13 calling on the US to end impunity for "perpetrators and policymakers responsible for years of gruesome abuse" at Guantánamo Bay and other detention facilities. Melzer urged US authorities to take action on the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee Report, which found that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deliberately misled Congress and the White House about information obtained using so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" between 2002 and 2007. Melzer contends that the US us in violation of the Convention Against Torture by failing to prosecute instances of torture outlined in the Senate Report, "sending a dangerous message of complacency and impunity to officials in the US and around the world." (Jurist, Dec. 14)

The US Supreme Court stated on Nov. 27 that it would not review (PDF) a lawsuit over a drone strike in Yemen that killed five people. Earlier this year, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed (PDF) the lawsuit by the families of two Yemeni men allegedly killed by a US drone strike in 2012. The plaintiffs argued that the two family members were victims of a "'signature strike," an attack in which the US "targets an unidentified person...based on a pattern of suspicious behavior as identified through metadata." Further, the plaintiffs argued that the drone operators waited until the two men joined the other three men initially targeted in the strike, in direct violation of international law. A unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel upheld a lower court's finding that "a court should not second-guess an Executive's decision about the appropriate military response" to a potential threat.

Valerie Plame, an ex-spook beloved by the left, got in hot water when she tweeted an article by fellow ex-spook beloved by the (far) right Philip Giraldi with the lovely title "America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars." In the subsequent outrage, The American Conservative finally gave Giraldi the sack. But Giraldi's Judeophobia seems not to bother others. He continues to have Unz Review for a platform, and they love him over at the (conspiranoid-right) Veterans Today. And the Council for the National Interest predictably continues to embrace Giraldi as their executive director. This outfit, fronted by our nemesis Alison Weir, is just what its name sounds like—a beltway body of paleocon right-nationalists paranoid about Jewish subversion.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled (PDF) Aug. 16 that Judge Scott Silliman should have recused himself in a case concerning multiple defendants who were charged with aiding in the 9-11 attacks. The petitioner, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, argued that Silliman was biased in the matter and cited a 2010 comment in which Silliman called Mohammad and his co-defendants the major conspirators in th attacks. The court found that because Silliman "expressed an opinion that Petitioner is guilty of the very crimes of which he is accused," he manifested an "apparent bias" and thus should have recused himself. The court granted the petition seeking recusal of Silliman and vacated a decision (PDF) by the US Court of Military Commission to reinstate charges for "attacking civilians and destroying property in violation of the law of war" against Mohammad and his co-defendants.

The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale issued a joint statement on July 7 apologizing to former Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr for violating his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Freeland and Goodale's statement read:

The US Supreme Court ruled (PDF)  4-2 on June 19 in Ziglar v. Abbasi that Muslim men detained in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks cannot sue top US officials. The three consolidated cases center on the arrest and detention of men illegally present in the US at the time of 2001 terror attacks. The men claimed that former US attorney general John Ashcroft, former FBI director Robert Mueller and a former Immigration & Naturalization Services commissioner confined them despite knowing they had no ties to terrorism. In an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court noted that the men were mistreated:

Attorneys for Guantánamo detainee Abu Zubaydah have filed a lawsuit against the two psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who developed the harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation. The UK human rights group Reprieve announced the case on June 7. The attorneys are seeking to subpoena the psychologists in order to uncover evidence about the torture that allegedly went on in Poland. According to US law, a federal district court may "order discovery of documents and testimony for use in a foreign proceeding from any person who resides or is found in the court's district." The case will be heard in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. The CIA had detained the plaintiff in a secret Polish prison from 2002 to 2003 on suspicions that he was a "facilitator" for al Qaeda. Zubaydah has been held at Guantanamo since 2006. In April 2016 a federal judge ruled that another lawsuit against the same psychologists with different plaintiffs could proceed.

More than 850 family members of victims of the 9-11 attacks filed a lawsuit (PDF) March 20 against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, alleging that the Saudi state provided support to al-Qaeda in multiple ways. First, it alleges that Saudi Arabian charities ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, working hand-in-hand with Osama bin Laden. The suit also claims that the Saudi government directly aided al-Qaeda by providing passports and transportation across the globe. Finally, the suit contends that certain Saudi officials worked with the hijackers in the US for the 18 months leading up to the attacks. The suit seeks unspecified damages, with the primary motive to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the attacks.