second circuit court of appeals

Praising an Italian court’s recent ruling that CIA agents broke the law in an extraordinary rendition case, The New York Times today highlights a growing phenomenon that hasn’t received sufficient attention: European courts appear more willing than their American counterparts to enforce the laws protecting basic human and civil rights.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals just dismissed a landmark lawsuit filed by a Canadian victim of “extraordinary rendition” against former U.S. officials, ruling that torture victims have no right to compensation from the U.S. government, even if U.S. officials were complicit in their treatment.
Maher Arar is a Canadian citizen who was seized in 2002 [...]

Amid the debate over Sotomayor’s supposedly “activist” move joining the per curiam opinion in the reverse discrimination case of Ricci v. DeStefano, there’s been little actual analysis of the legal standards the Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel’s decision was based on.
Although that may be because the panel did not issue a long written opinion [...]

To follow up on my post yesterday about whether liberals may end up disappointed with a Justice Sonia Sotomayor (an argument E.J. Dionne also makes today in The Washington Post), the case I mentioned — and that Glenn Greenwald writes about today (he also litigated it before Judge Sotomayor in 1999) — merits a closer [...]