Newly-declared Democratic Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) was appointed chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs on Thursday. Specter received that post from Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) who voluntarily gave up his position as chairman and is expected to head a newly created subcommittee on human rights and the law . For his [...]
Guest commentator Vicheka Lay,* a legal consultant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, reflects on Cambodia's changing legal market… Cambodian legal practitioners face many new challenges brought on by the nation's increased participation in regional and global trade, as well as the influx of foreign-owned businesses. Cambodian lawyers must be aware of the latest developments in legal [...]
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local ordinances prohibiting convicted sex offenders (CSOs) from living near schools, playgrounds, and other public areas were preempted by the state's Megan's Law and, therefore, invalid. The court affirmed a July 2008 decision in the Appellate Division of Superior Court of New Jersey , in which the [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Jeffrey Addicott of St. Mary's University School of Law, formerly a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, says that even the worst of the authorized CIA interrogation techniques do not constitute torture by established international legal standards and therefore their authorization does not warrant prosecution… Allegations of torture [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's latest statements on waterboarding indicate her complicity in unlawful interrogation, and that she and others in the "inner circle" of the Bush administration should be held legally accountable under the international treaties to which the [...]
Republican leaders in the US House of Representatives on Thursday announced the "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act," which would require approval from a state's governor and legislature before Guantanamo Bay detainees could be transferred or released into it. Under the the proposed measure, the federal government would be required, at least 60 days before [...]
US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on Thursday denied an application for stay of deportation filed by accused Nazi prison guard John Demjanjuk . Demjanjuk faces deportation to Germany, where in March a Munich district court charged him with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor concentration camp. [...]
The security company known formerly as Blackwater Worldwide on Thursday concluded its operations in Baghdad as its contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq ended. A spokesperson from the US Embassy in Iraq said that the company, nos called XE , will remain in southern Iraq until the summer. Virgina-based Triple Canopy will take over [...]
The French government on Wednesday confirmed that it will accept Algerian Guantanamo Bay detainee Lakhdar Boumediene after his release from the detention center. Boumediene was the named plaintiff in the US Supreme Court case Boumediene v. Bush , in which the Court held that Guantanamo detainees could challenge their imprisonment in federal court through the [...]
The UK Home Office on Thursday released new proposals for a controversial DNA database that would remove the DNA information of innocent people. The Home Office said that DNA information could still remain in the database for six to 12 years in cases of "serious violent or sexual crimes." The new proposals are in response [...]
