The North Carolina General Assembly on Monday voted to override the veto of Governor Beverly Perdue regarding legislation that will essentially nullify the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA) . Signed into law by Perdue in 2009, the RJA allows an individual sentenced to death to present evidence to prove that racial bias was a major [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Monday decided to hear the appeal of a former US Marine convicted of the 2006 murder of an Iraqi policeman. The court approved a review in the case of Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III on a petition claiming that Hutchins’ constitutional rights were violated when he [...]

The Constitutional Court of Romania on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Victor Ponta and his leftist party, the Social Liberal Union (SLU), of attempting to seize control over the judiciary system. The court announced that it has alerted the European authorities of the situation. The prime minister had ignored last week’s decision by the court which [...]

Two Illinois county clerks, represented by the Thomas More Society , on Friday filed a motion in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois seeking permission to defend the state’s law banning same-sex marriage in two combined lawsuits challenging its constitutionality. Effingham County Clerk Kerry Hirtzel and Tazewell County Clerk Christie Webb sought to intervene [...]

US computer chip maker Intel on Tuesday argued before the EU General Court that the European Commission used flawed and inadequate evidence when it imposed a fine against the company in 2009. Intel had brought the challenge two months after the Commission’s decision to fine the company, claiming that the antitrust regulators erred in law, [...]

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called on member states to abolish capital punishment. He welcomed the trend of abolishing the death penalty since the UN General Assembly endorsed a call for a moratorium on capital punishment in 2007. He noted that more than 150 states have either abolished or do not participate in punishment [...]

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called on the UN member states to establish a comprehensive arms treaty to limit the flow of conventional arms to terrorists and criminal networks. Speaking at the UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty , the first-ever meeting of UN member states to negotiate a treaty for the trade [...]

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday appealed last week’s decision acquitting former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on one of 11 charges for lack of evidence. Last week the court rejected Karadzic’s motion to dismiss 10 charges against him while acquitting him on one count for his alleged [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday urged the government of Sri Lanka to end arrests and office raids of journalists who publish content critical of the government. HRW noted two recent instances where police raided offices and arrested journalists at two news agencies , charging them under a law that bans “excit or attempt to [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday expressed concern about a proposed media law in Afghanistan that would increase government authority to regulate the press. According to HRW, the new law would place greater oversight authority in the director of the High Media Council, which would also be able to influence the budgets and composition of [...]