The Stockholm District Court on Wednesday began proceedings in the the country’s first war crimes trial of Swedish citizen and former Bosnian prison guard Ahmet Makitan . Makitan is accused of violating the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War by kidnapping people and torturing and insulting prisoners at a camp in Dretelj, [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday urged the Congolese government to arrest Bosco Ntaganda , a Congolese general wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. HRW claims that, since January, Ntaganda has been implicated in the assassination of at least eight people, arbitrary arrests of another seven and the abduction and disappearance [...]
The US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday heard opening statements in the first civilian trial of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee. An attorney for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani argued during the opening statements that al Qaeda took advantage of Ghailani’s youth and that Ghailani was unaware of the terrorists’ criminal [...]
The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) released a decision last week that allows the Rwandan government to pursue charges against US lawyer and JURIST Forum contributor Peter Erlinder . In a reversal of a previous statement , the ICTR decided that Erlinger was charged for alleged actions committed outside the [...]
The US Department of Justice on Tuesday filed two notices of appeal in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts , defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) . The notices of appeal do not specify the DOJ’s arguments in support of the law, which will eventually be heard by the US [...]
The French National Assembly on Tuesday voted 294-239 to adopt a controversial immigration bill that would would strip criminals born in other countries of their French nationality if they have been convicted of violent crimes against police officers. The French Senate will consider the bill , which would also deport EU citizens for crimes such [...]
Judge Virginia Phillips of the US District Court of the Central District of California on Tuesday ordered the US military to end enforcement of its controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy . The order comes a little more than a month after the court declared the policy unconstitutional after considering arguments by the Log [...]
US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday the end of a six-month moratorium on certain types of deepwater oil drilling some seven weeks ahead of schedule. In a letter issuing the order to Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) director Michael Bromwich , Salazar said that new drilling regulations enacted earlier this [...]
The UN Secretary-General’s special adviser on maritime piracy Jack Lang called Tuesday for other nations to provide assistance to Kenya in conducting piracy trials. Kenya has expressed fears that it will become a dumping-ground for pirates and allowed an agreement for conducting piracy trials in Kenya to lapse last month. The UN is negotiating this [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth on compensation for injuries caused by childhood vaccines. The question is whether § 22(b)(1) of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which expressly preempts certain design defect claims against vaccine manufacturers “if the injury or death resulted from side effects that [...]
