Australian rights group Civil Liberties Australia (CLA) on Wednesday sharply criticized the government's proposed reforms to Australia's national security and anti-terrorism legislation. Last week, Australian Attorney General Robert McClelland released a 452-page discussion paper detailing the proposed changes, including "providing police with new emergency powers to enter and search premises without a warrant where it [...]

The Obama administration has notified Congress of plans to transfer six Guantanamo Bay detainees out of the country, according to a Tuesday Miami Herald report . The notifications were reportedly filed August 7, in accordance with a new law that requires risk assessments and notification of transfers. One of the six detainees is Mohammed Jawad [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday overturned the conviction of former Brocade Communications Systems CEO Gregory Reyes for backdating stock options . Citing prosecutorial misconduct, the appeals court overturned Reyes's 2007 conviction and sentence on conspiracy and fraud charges for backdating stock options. The Ninth Circuit found that the prosecution [...]

Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong has been charged with tax evasion, his lawyer said Tuesday. Xu is accused of failing to pay taxes on a $100,000 grant from Yale University earmarked for the legal research center of Xu's Gongmeng human rights group. Xu was taken into custody last month, shortly after Chinese officials [...]

Joshua Posaner : "The recent case in Britain, in which the charity Reprieve is assisting Mohamed Saad Iqbal Madni in filing a lawsuit with the High Court, can only illustrate the fact that the British government is prepared to recognize its duty in giving this man a trial. We also realize that the British security [...]

Russian human rights activists and journalists are suspending their work in Chechnya in the wake of the recent violence, according to a Tuesday Moscow Times report . Rights group Memorial , which employed recently murdered activist Natalia Estemirova , closed its Chechen office soon after her death. Memorial, which has continued work in Chechnya through [...]

The US District Court for the Western District of Texas on Monday upheld a University of Texas at Austin (UT) affirmative action policy of considering race in student admissions. The plaintiffs were two Caucasian females who were denied admission to UT. They challenged the admission policy, which allows race and ethnicity to be considered among [...]

Kindhearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development, Inc. v. Geithner, US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, August 18, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here.

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor takes a seat on the US Supreme Court – the first Hispanic and only the third woman to do so – the federal judiciary as a whole continues to be heavily dominated by white males, according to a new report released by the Brookings Institution . As of early August 2009, [...]

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acknowledged Monday that 11 deaths in immigration detention had gone unreported . ICE added 10 names to the official roster of immigration detainee fatalities and acknowledged an eleventh death that occurred last week. The revelation of the additional deaths came in response to an American Civil Liberties Union [...]