JURIST Guest Columnist Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law, lead defense counsel for former Major Aloys Ntabakuze in the Military 1 Trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and president of the UN-ICTR Defense Lawyers Association,...

Morten Messerschmidt : "Since the terrorist attack against the United States in 2001 all Western countries have reinforced their legal armoury in the fight against Islamic terror. In Denmark this amongst other measures led to a strengthening...

JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that opinions of the US Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel that are manifestly inconsistent with or violative of the laws of war provide no legal...

JURIST Guest Columnist Timothy Waters of Indiana University School of Law Bloomington says that Kosovo's declaration of independence represents a problematic precedent in international law that may ironically bring us back to self-determination as the core historical and moral justification...

JURIST Contributing Editor Michael Kelly of Creighton University School of Law says that for historical and humanitarian reasons Kosovo's bid for self-determination will prevail over Russian legal objections despite the fact that the province's unilateral secession from Serbia has been...

Awzar Thi : "The news that Burma's government will hold a constitutional plebiscite this May, followed by general elections in 2010, has captured interest and caused some confusion abroad. That the army is intent upon cementing...

JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law says that the rules of evidence governing the recently announced military commission trials of six alleged al Qaeda members, combined with the Bush administration's efforts to sanitize the legal...

Judith Sutherland : "On February 7, 2008, the French parliament enacted a law allowing for the continued detention of offenders who have already completed their prison sentences, purportedly to prevent them re-offending....

JURIST Guest Columnist Haider Ala Hamoudi of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that despite appearances, the Iraqi parliament's adoption of a budget and other key laws on provincial administration and amnesty emphasizes rather than diminishes the regional...

Daryl Kimball : "Defense Minister Ivanov's address at the Berlin security conference reflects Russia's frustration with the current US-Russian impasse on key strategic weapons issues and the Bush administration's resistance to certain bilateral strategic arms agreements....