US officials said May 15 that Algerian Guantánamo Bay detainee Lakhdar Boumediene has been released and sent to France. Boumediene was the named plaintiff in the US Supreme Court case Boumediene v. Bush , in which the Court held that Guantanamo detainees could challenge their imprisonment in federal court through the use of habeas corpus motions.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in a May 14 New York Times op-ed, urged the US to hold accountable those accused of committing torture under the Bush administration. Pillay welcomed the US as a new member of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and lauded decisions by President Barack Obama to ban torture and close CIA prisons and to review detentions at Guantánamo Bay, but said that the US should hold accountable anyone who committed human rights abuses:

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said May 14 that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) misled Congress about the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques during the Bush administration. Pelosi, the former top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that CIA officials had explicitly said that they were not using the controversial waterboarding technique. Pelosi did concede that she had learned in 2003 that harsh techniques were being employed but defended her decision not to speak up over security concerns. Pelosi renewed calls for an independent "truth commission" to investigate alleged abuses committed during the Bush administration.

US President Barack Obama has decided to seek a delay of the release of photographs depicting abusive treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, reversing an earlier decision, White House officials said May 13. Last month, the Department of Justice agreed to release at least 44 photographs pursuant to a court order. The photos were scheduled to be released May 28. Obama reversed that decision after meeting last week with White house lawyers, citing concerns over retribution against US troops serving overseas. Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also wrote to Obama last week to urge him to fight the release of the photos.

A Canadian oil company has signed a deal with Peru's government allowing it to explore land inhabited by one of the world's last uncontacted tribes. The company, Petrolifera, has reached an agreement to explore almost four thousand sq kms of a remote part of Peru where uncontacted Cacataibo indigenous bands live. Two local organizations, the Common Good Institute (IBC) and the Native Federation of Cacataibo Communities (FENACOCA), have previously asked the government to turn the area into a reserve for the indigenous groups.

The Movement of People Harmed by Dams (MAB) and the local branch of Vía Campesina ("Campesino Way") held a vigil the evening of May 7 at the Mártires de Abril Plaza in Belém, capital of the northern Brazilian state of Pará, to demand the release of 18 people arrested on April 26 when the state's militarized police broke up a sit-in near the Tucuruí dam. The prisoners each face at least 11 charges; if convicted they could be sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The Costa Rica-based Inter-American Human Rights Court (CIDH) of the Organization of American States (OAS) ruled on May 6 that the Honduran government shared responsibility for the murder of environmental activist Blanca Jeannette Kawas Fernández at her home in Tela on Feb. 6, 1995. Kawas Fernández, the president of the Foundation for the Protection of the Natural Resources of Lancetilla, Punta Sal and Texiguat (Prolansate), had accused timber companies of illegal exploitation of the Punta Sal peninsula and of plans for its illegal appropriation, along with damage to the National Park and other protected sites. She had also opposed several economic development plans in the region.

Dozens of Haitian activists held a sit-in in front of the Dominican embassy in Pétionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, on the morning of May 8 to protest the lynching of Haitian national Carlos Nérilus in Santo Domingo on May 2. The activists denounced both the failure of Dominican authorities to protect Haitian nationals and what they called the "laissez-faire" policy of the Haitian government; they demanded the immediate recall of Fritz Cinéas, Haiti's ambassador in Santo Domingo.