The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Jan. 29 that while the treatment of Canadian Guantánamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr violated his rights, the government does not have to press for his return to Canada. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that the interrogation of Khadr by Canadian officials while in detention violated section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen Rapp said Jan. 28 that no US president is likely to present the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to the US Senate for ratification in the "foreseeable future." Speaking at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Rapp said that while the US has an important role in international criminal justice, it is unlikely to join the ICC anytime soon. Rapp cited fears that US officials would be unfairly prosecuted and the United States' strong national court system as reasons it would be difficult to overcome opposition to ratification. Rapp also said that the US has a role to play in a three-part system for ending international impunity. The US must work to strengthen national court systems, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the US must work with countries that exercise universal jurisdiction when there is some relation between the country and the crime, and the US should continue to support the work of international criminal tribunals.

The US Department of Justice announced Jan. 26 that an Uzbek Guantánamo Bay detainee has been transferred to Switzerland. The detainee's identity will not be disclosed in order to facilitate his transition into life in Switzerland. The Swiss government agreed to accept the detainee for resettlement "on humanitarian grounds" after reassurances from the US that the man was not convicted of any crime and will not be a threat to public safety. The detainee was originally cleared for release in 2005, but could not return to Uzbekistan for fear of persecution.

The US Supreme Court Jan. 25 declined to hear an appeal by former Panamanian military ruler Manuel Noriega challenging a lower court ruling denying his habeas corpus petition and authorizing his extradition to France on money laundering charges. Noriega, who has been declared a prisoner of war, invoked a provision of the Geneva Convention that requires repatriation at the end of confinement. In an April decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit found that his claim was precluded by the Military Commission Act of 2006, which the government argued "codifie[d] the principle that the Geneva Conventions [a]re not judicially enforceable by private parties."

The Rag Blog on Jan. 11 was among those to take note in alarmist terms ("Got Fascism?") of a suggestion by Cass Sunstein—President Obama's Harvard Law School friend and recently appointed administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs—for "cognitive infiltration" by government agents to combat the growing popularity of conspiracy theory. In a piece entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures" in the August issue of the Journal of Political Philosophy, Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule write:

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized on Jan. 23 a US Justice Department recommendation that 47 Guantánamo Bay inmates should be held indefinitely without trial. Department officials said the men were too dangerous to release, but could not be tried due to insufficient evidence. ACLU director Anthony Romero said their detention would reduce the camp's closure to a "symbolic gesture." (BBC News, Jan. 23)

The US Department of Justice announced Jan. 22 that two Guantánamo Bay detainees have been transferred to Algeria. Hassan Zumiri had spent more than seven years in the Guantánamo detention center, while Adil Hadi al-Jazairi bin Hamlili had been held for five. Both men are Algerian nationals, bringing the total number of Algerians released from Guantánamo to 19. The transfer comes amid criticisms from Republican Congress members after a Department of Defense official stated recently that about one in five detainees have returned to terrorist activities, according to a classified Pentagon report.

World War 4 Report has been keeping a dispassionate record of Barack Obama's moves in dismantling, continuing and escalating (he has done all three) the oppressive apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) established by the Bush White House. On the first anniversary of his inauguration, we offer the following annotated assessment of which moves have been on balance positive, neutral and negative, and arrive at an overall score: