The Afghan Local Police (ALP) force is committing serious abuses , and the Afghan government is doing little to hold the officials accountable, Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced Monday. In a report entitled “Just Don’t Call It a Militia: Impunity, Militias, and the Afghan Local Police,” HRW alleges that the national army and police have [...]
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague on Monday began hearing arguments from Germany and Italy, which is seeking damages from Germany for crimes committed by Nazis during World War II. In November 2008, Germany filed a lawsuit against Italy in the ICJ in a bid to block new claims for personal damages [...]
Ugandan Supreme Court Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki on Friday said the Judiciary lacks independence as a result of interference by African governments. At the Southern African Chief Justices Forum in Kampala, Odoki pointed to surveys by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum that rank African countries below other countries with respect to judicial [...]
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday accepted the resignation of the country’s lead corruption watchdog, Raheem Uqaili. Uqaili was the chairman of Iraq’s Integrity Commission , an independent corruption monitoring agency that investigates officials from the Defense Ministry and other government agencies. Uqaili supporters say political conflict prevented him from taking on key cases [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says that despite the plethora of legal and cultural changes that have occurred in the US since September 11, 2001, international law remains the same as it was a decade ago, and that the changes which have occurred in the US have [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has agreed to a rehearing en banc to determine the constitutionality of an amendment to the Michigan Constitution banning affirmative action. Proposal 2 bans affirmative action in public employment, public education and state contracting. The decision vacates a ruling handed down by a three-judge panel of [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon sent a letter to the UN Security Council (UNSC) , which was circulated on Friday, seeking the formation of a mission to provide assistance to the new post-conflict authorities in Libya. Ban proposed the establishment of a three-month United Nations Support Mission in Libya, which would focus on “further defining the [...]
Lauren Prunty, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2012, is the author of the third article in a ten part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development under the direction of Professor Leonard Baynes. She writes on federal anti-terrorism law and the benefits of prosecuting domestic terrorists [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Leonard Cutler of Siena College says that President Obama did not keep his promise to make the country’s counterterrorism policy more consistent with constitutional principles and international law, and that it remains to be seen whether his approach to counterterrorism can avoid the serious political damage manifested by his predecessor… After al-Qaeda’s [...]
Christie Tomm, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2012, is the author of the second article in a ten part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development under the direction of Professor Leonard Baynes. She writes on the need to maintain a single justice system in prosecuting [...]
