A senior judge in the UK House of Lords on Friday criticized the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) , saying the court has overstepped its bounds and is attempting to create a "federal law of Europe." In a recent lecture, Lord Hoffman , the second senior law lord, said that attempts by the ECHR [...]
Drug maker Pfizer reached a settlement Friday with the Nigerian state of Kano in a lawsuit over allegedly illegal clinical trials the company conducted in Nigeria in 1996. The national government and the state of Kano filed separate lawsuits against Pfizer in 2007, accusing the company of administering meningitis medication to 200 Nigerian children, including [...]
French President Nicholas Sarkozy said Friday that his country would accept one Guantanamo Bay detainee in a symbolic effort to aid the closure of the detention center. Sarkozy made the announcement ahead of this weekend's North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Strasbourg, France and Kehl, Germany. According to reports, the detainee that would be [...]
Australian Minister of Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin announced Friday that the country has endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples . The move reverses the position of the country's former administration on the declaration. Macklin said the decision by the country's current Labor Party government to sign the declaration was rooted in its desire to improve [...]
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Friday announced the appointment of South African judge Richard Goldstone to head a UN fact-finding mission to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Goldstone previously served as the chief UN prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for [...]
The French National Assembly voted 29-4 Thursday to accept a provision in a new bill that would cut off internet access for those who repeatedly illegally download copyrighted material. Under the bill, any internet user tagged by an ISP as downloading the material would initially receive a warning, followed by up to a one-year ban for the [...]
The Mexican Senate on Thursday passed an amendment to the country's constitution that would permit seizure of property from suspected drug traffickers and other criminals prior to conviction. Under the proposed amendment, which will now be sent to the lower house, prosecutors may seek the seizure of property and income derived from organized crime, including illegal narcotic sales and [...]
The Supreme Court of Iowa held Friday that a statute banning same-sex marriage violates the state's constitution . In the ruling, the court affirmed a lower court's decision that the statute's limitation of civil marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the equal protection rights of same-sex couples. The case was brought by advocacy group Lambda Legal , which argued [...]
The Vermont House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill approving same-sex marriage . The bill, aimed at "promot legal equality in the civil marriage laws and … protect the religious freedom of clergy and religious societies authorized to solemnize civil marriages," was approved by a margin of 95-52 , which falls short of the [...]
Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich , his brother Robert Blagojevich, and four associates were indicted on corruption charges Thursday by a federal grand jury. Rod Blagojevich was charged with 16 felonies including wire fraud, attempted extortion, racketeering conspiracy, extortion conspiracy, and making false statements. Others indicted include Blagojevich's former chief of staff John Harris, former [...]
