From the Introduction

...Almost from the moment they seized power, soldiers of the Liberian Armed Forces have been a law unto themselves. Looting, arson, flogging, arbitrary arrests, persistent reports of rape—all of these abuses have been attributed on a wide scale to soldiers loyal to President Doe. Reports of summary executions, meanwhile, have been colored by credible eyewitness descriptions of horrific brutality, including castration and dismemberment.

The Sudan government's attempt to accommodate international principles within the framework of Shari'a has led to the uneven application of criminal law. This report explores those contradictions. It analyzes the impact of the Sudanese government's imposition of Islamic law on the country's criminal justice system, and evaluates the extent to which this has affected Sudan's obligations under international law. This case study is helpful in illuminating the broader debate about the potential impact of Islamic political movements on human rights protections.

No continent has been more grievously afflicted by forced migration than Africa where some 20 million people are currently either refugees or internally displaced persons. This report assesses the state of refugee protection in Africa and studies the implementation of the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugees in Africa.

Wrongs and Rights: A Human Rights Analysis of China's Revised Criminal Code
(1999) $12 / ISBN 0-934143-90-0 /
71 pp.

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Extensive revisions to China's Criminal Code went into effect on October 1, 1997. The main focus of the reforms is on modernizing, rationalizing, and professionalizing the criminal justice system, with no intent to liberalize, much less to advance human rights. Some of this rationalization has the effect of protecting Chinese citizens from arbitrary abuses. In other respects, however, the revised Code gives the authorities even greater powers to criminalize activities protected under international law. This report is designed to give those outside China the factual information they need if they are to provide effective support for those in China working to bring Chinese law and practice closer to international human rights standards.

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The criminal justice system in China remains rife with incidents of torture, arbitrary detention and denials of due process. Despite these obstacles, China's lawyers are starting to play an increasingly active role in encouraging reform and fostering public awareness of legal rights. China's new Lawyers Law constitutes a significant step in China's efforts to develop a more professional and independent legal profession. Lawyers in China discusses the new law, providing both a historical look at the role of lawyers in China and an in-depth look at the current state of the legal profession. The report also recommends ways in which well-informed outsiders can support internal reform efforts.

In March 1996, China's National People's Congress decided to approve sweeping changes to the country's Criminal Procedure Law. The NPC's decision is the most significant legislative development to affect the Chinese criminal justice system in almost 20 years. When the revisions to the Criminal Procedure Law take effect on January 1, 1997, they will mean major changes - at least on paper - in how criminal cases in China are investigated, prosecuted and tried. This report examines how far these changes will result in improved protection for basic rights, and how far they still fall short of international standards.

Patrick Finucane was a highly effective human rights lawyer who gained international recognition in the 1980s for representing people arrested under Northern Ireland's antiterrorism laws. On February 12, 1989, masked gunmen broke into his Belfast home and shot him 14 times in front of his wife and three children. Although the Ulster Defense Association, a loyalist paramilitary group, claimed responsibility for the killing, strong evidence has emerged linking three separate U.K. intelligence agencies to the murder. Despite this, the results of the official investigations into the case have remained largely classified, and no one has ever been successfully prosecuted for the killing. With Beyond Collusion, the Lawyers Committee provides a comprehensive account of the Finucane case on the 14th anniversary of his murder. Drawing on Lawyers Committee's investigative missions to Northern Ireland, the report pieces together the extensive evidence of state involvement that has emerged in the many years since the killing.

This report addresses a series of long-term human rights problems in Northern Ireland, principally the continuation of a series of emergency powers by the UK authorities, as well as limitations on the normal functioning of both the judiciary and the legal profession. This report argues that the key to rebuilding confidence in the rule of law in Northern Ireland is the ending of the emergency regime, without which it cannot return to normality.

The criminal justice system in China remains rife with incidents of torture, arbitrary detention and denials of due process. Despite these obstacles, China's lawyers are starting to play an increasingly active role in encouraging reform and fostering public awareness of legal rights. China's new Lawyers Law constitutes a significant step in China's efforts to develop a more professional and independent legal profession. Lawyers in China discusses the new law, providing both a historical look at the role of lawyers in China and an in-depth look at the current state of the legal profession. The report also recommends ways in which well-informed outsiders can support internal reform efforts.

In March 1996, China's National People's Congress decided to approve sweeping changes to the country's Criminal Procedure Law. The NPC's decision is the most significant legislative development to affect the Chinese criminal justice system in almost 20 years. When the revisions to the Criminal Procedure Law take effect on January 1, 1997, they will mean major changes - at least on paper - in how criminal cases in China are investigated, prosecuted and tried. This report examines how far these changes will result in improved protection for basic rights, and how far they still fall short of international standards.

As non-governmental organizations concerned with human rights multiply in countries around the world, they have encountered hostility in the form of laws and rules designed to hamper their operation. These denials of freedom of association are the focus of this paper, which reviews the jurisprudence on this vaguely understood right and discusses what freedom of association means and against what limitations it must be defended.

The World Bank's Handbook addresses a key concern for the development of civil societies: the national legal framewoek for the formation and operations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Yet in important respects the current draft of the Handbook is inconsistent with the fundamental principles underpinning freedom of association. The Lawyers Committee's critique discusses our concerns.

In the new Hong Kong, laws governing freedom of association threaten a growing and vibrant human rights constituency. This paper examines the regulation of associations in Hong Kong and how they may be restricted by a recently asserted concern for "national security." The paper tells how human rights advocates in Hong Kong have resisted recent encroachments on freedom of association.

Torture, intimidation, and coercion of detainees are entrenched practices in Mexico's criminal justice system. Legalized Injustice uncovers the causes of torture by focusing on how criminal justice either encourages or simply fails to deter it. A joint effort of the New York City-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and the Mexico City-based “Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez” Human Rights Center, Legalized Injustice makes compelling recommendations for changes in law and practice to reduce or eliminate torture and mistreatment.

The role of the UN in El Salvador from 1991 to 1995 was an unprecedented exercise that went beyond simple mediation. Never before had the parties to a protracted civil war agreed to such a comprehensive, or potentially intrusive, mediation by the international community. This report evaluates whether the mission succeeded in reducing human rights violations in El Salvador and if it left the country better equipped to deal with violations that may occur in the future.

This report examines the role of the United Nations/OAS human rights monitoring mission in Haiti during the Haitian crisis of 1993-1994.

Assessing the New Normal: Liberty and Security for the Post-September 11 United States
(2003) $15 / 148pp.

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ASSESSING THE NEW NORMAL, the third in a series of reports, documents the continuing erosion of basic human rights protections under U.S. law and policy since September 11. Today, two years after the attacks, it is no longer possible to view these changes as aberrant parts of an emergency response. Rather, the expansion of executive power and abandonment of established civil and criminal procedures have become part of a “new normal” in American life. The new normal, defined in part by the loss of particular freedoms for some, is as troubling for its detachment from the rule of law as a whole. The U.S. government can no longer promise that individuals will be governed by known principles of conduct, applied equally in all cases, and administered by independent courts. As this report shows, in a growing number of cases, legal safeguards are now observed only insofar as they are consistent with the chosen ends of power.

Successive Turkish leaders have pledged to advance reform in the field of human rights, but progress in meeting these commitments has been patchy, at best. This report examines problems and recommends solutions in three key human rights areas in Turkey: defective trial procedures before special State Security Courts used to try many political cases; the problem of impunity for members of the security forces involved in torture and extra-judicial killing; and the persecution of defense lawyers in political cases and of other human rights defenders.