The US Supreme Court Tuesday ruled 5-4 in FCC v. Fox Television Stations that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in changing its policy regarding fines for the broadcast of isolated expletives. In 2004 the FCC changed its longstanding policy, saying that it would no longer permit the use of [...]
The Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC) released a report Monday concluding that three Afghan detainees were not mistreated while in Canadian military police custody in Kandahar in 2006. The probe began following a civilian complaint filed by University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran , whose research uncovered a pattern of suspicious injuries on [...]
The federal trial of a former US soldier accused of raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in 2006 began Monday. Former US Army Pfc. Steven Green is also charged with killing the girl's family in Mahmudiya, Iraq. During Monday's opening statements, prosecutors said that Green raped the girl, shot her several times, and then [...]
The US State Department released Monday its commitments and pledges as part of its campaign to gain a seat on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) . All countries attempting to be elected to the body, which holds elections every year for three-year terms, are invited to outline their national commitments to human rights and [...]
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Monday that it would review three new source review rules that regulate emissions from coal power plants. The announcement comes as the EPA has stepped up its efforts to regulate greenhouse gases and other atmospheric pollutants. The rules in question were promulgated during the administration of former president [...]
JURIST Guest Columnists Victor Hansen and Lawrence Friedman of New England School of Law say that if we learn nothing else from recent disclosures about the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism detainees, we must come to understand that once we decide to go down the road to officially sanctioned cruelty – [...]
UK Justice Minister Jack Straw said Monday that his country would still be willing to consider a US request to take in terrorism detainees held by at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, if doing so would aid in the closure of the facility. Speaking at a meeting with his US counterpart, Attorney General Eric Holder [...]
Christopher Holton : "The imposition of Sharia in Somalia will not bring about stability, unless of course by stability one means the kind of "stability" that came about when the Taliban ascended to power in Afghanistan at the turn of the century. Like Somalia, Afghanistan was also a failed state at the time with warring [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in two cases. In Nijhawan v. Holder , the Court will consider whether convictions for mail, bank, and wire fraud qualify as an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) , where the amount of loss caused was not determined by a jury. The US [...]
UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced Monday that the British government will not be establishing a central government database to keep records of phone calls, emails, and Internet activity, instead leaving that job to private communications providers. The British government abandoned the central database approach due to potential privacy implications and instead has proposed that [...]
