The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in three cases. In McDaniel v. Brown , the Court will consider whether the evidence underlying the defendant’s conviction for sexual assault was clearly insufficient under the Court's 1979 decision in Jackson v. Virginia on federal habeas review. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [...]

Former Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga pleaded not guilty on Monday in the historic first trial of the International Criminal Court (ICC) . Lubanga, founder of the militant Union of Patriotic Congolese , is charged with enlisting child soldiers under 15 years old and using them to facilitate violence and human rights abuses in the [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Mary Ellen O'Connell of Notre Dame Law School says that while President Barack Obama's initial executive orders are encouraging signs of renewed American respect for international law, robust American recommitment to that seems unlikely in the next four years… On January 22, President Obama signed executive orders to close the Guantanamo Bay [...]

Venezuela will renew its request that the US extradite anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles , an official announced on Friday. Venezuela is hopeful that the new Obama administration will be more receptive to the request . Venezuela and Cuba contend that the US is legally obligated to extradite Posada because it is bound by international [...]

The Supreme Court of Israel on Sunday ordered that foreign reporters be given open access to the Gaza Strip unless there is a "concrete" danger to their safety. The court gave the order in response to a petition filed by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) , which claimed foreign reporters had been denied access to [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged Sunday to protect members of his country's military involved in Gaza operations from prosecution by foreign entities in remarks at a weekly cabinet meeting. After insisting that Israeli forces had gone out of their way to avoid injuring civilians during their Gaza actions , Olmert said: The State of [...]

Bolivians began voting Sunday morning on a proposed constitution supported by President Evo Morales . The proposed changes would give the state control over the country's natural gas deposits, would require members of the country's supreme court to be elected by national vote and would give Morales himself the option of remaining in power until [...]

Ousted Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry declared Saturday that he is still the chief justice of the country's Supreme Court under Pakistan's constitution . Chaudhry made the statement during a lawyers' convention in Lahore organized by the Punjab Bar Council . Addressing attendees, he maintained his position that the removal of himself and other [...]

The legal fate of captured Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rebel leader Laurent Nkunda remained unclear Saturday, days after his surprise arrest in Rwanda. Nkunda was apprehended Thursday near the border with the DRC after a joint DRC-Rwandan military operation to capture him and root out Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in the DRC. He is [...]

The government of Malaysia has asked the United States to permit its security officials to meet with two Malaysian citizens being held in Guantanamo Bay , according to state media Saturday. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that he would like to see the two men returned to Malaysia so that they could [...]