December 16 - The House of Lords rules that the British Government breaches human rights legislation, by detaining without trial foreign nationals suspected of being terrorists.

But the Democratic and Republican negotiators in the House scaled back or dropped several provisions sought by the White House, notably the ability to detain foreign nationals suspected of terrorism indefinitely.

Section 412 of the act provides the government with "sweeping new powers to detain foreign nationals and immigrants indefinitely with little or no due process at the discretion of the Attorney General."

The legislation would also allow officials to detain foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism for up to seven days, after which they would have to be released if they were not charged with a crime.

Created in 1986, the administrative detention center was set up to detain Spanish nationals who had entered French territory illegally.

In Canadian law, a security certificate is a mechanism by which the Government of Canada can detain and deport foreign nationals and all other non-citizens living in Canada.

In 1907 the land was granted to the Canadian government, which used it to detain German and Austro-Hungarian nationals during the First World War.

The Syrian authorities have recently detained and deported several British nationals for unauthorised activity.

Respondents assert that their actions are absolutely immune from judicial examination whenever they elect to detain foreign nationals outside our borders.

Following a request by England to detain German nationals, Germany declared war on Portugal (which was reciprocated on 9 March 1916).