The US Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter that disclosure orders adverse to the attorney-client privilege do not qualify for immediate appeal under the collateral order doctrine. The Court affirmed the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which ruled that there is no such right to [...]
A legally-binding treaty on climate change should be ready in 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon announced Monday during the 13th Session of the General Conference of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) . Ban's comments come as the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) is taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 192-nation conference was originally designed [...]
A Chilean judge ruled Monday that former president Eduardo Frei Montalva was assassinated, charging six in connection with his death. Judge Alejandro Madrid of the Chilean Court of Appeals found that Frei Montalva, who was president of Chile from 1964-1970, had been poisoned with mustard gas and other chemicals before his 1982 death. Three men [...]
The National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL) and other groups on Monday petitioned the Philippines Supreme Court to reject a proclamation by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus in the province of Maguindanao. The groups claim that Arroyo exceeded her constitutional authority to impose martial law by making the proclamation in [...]
JURIST Special Guest Columnist Andrea Prasow of Human Rights Watch says that judging from what she saw at Guantanamo last week, the new system of US military commissions established under the Military Commissions Act of 2009 fails to meet "our highest standards as a nation," despite a recent pledge by US Attorney General Eric Holder… [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Monday that a Chicago man has been charged in connection with the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India . US citizen David Coleman Headley, arrested in October for allegedly conspiring to bomb a Danish newspaper, was charged Monday with six counts of conspiracy to bomb public places [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in two cases. In Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board , the Court heard arguments on whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 violates constitutional separation of powers by affording members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) executive [...]
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Monday a finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health and the environment. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson signed two separate findings Monday: that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations," and that emissions from motor vehicles contribute to greenhouse gas pollution. With these [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday rejected a motion filed by former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic challenging the legitimacy of the court. Karadzic claimed that the UN Security Council overstepped its powers when it created the court in 1993. The tribunal summarily rejected this argument: Whether the UNSC legally [...]
A special 17-member panel of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday began hearing a legal challenge to an order that grants President Asif Ali Zardari and 8,000 other government officials immunity from corruption charges. There has been speculation that the case may also address separate constitutional immunity granted to Zardari as head-of-state. Opponents of [...]
