On 30 June 2008, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions called on the US government to discontinue all military commission proceedings currently underway against whom the US authorities are to seek the death penalty. On the same day the US Department of Defense announced that capital charges had been sworn against ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri for trial by military commission. Any trials should be conducted before the appropriate, regularly-constituted criminal courts in the USA, with the full fair trial protections required by international human rights law.