JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that President Barack Obama should follow up his executive order banning torture and inhumane interrogation by fulfilling treaty-based and customary international legal obligations to either initiate prosecution of or to extradite all persons – including high US officials – reasonably accused of [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugolavia (ICTY) on Wednesday charged Volislav Seselj with contempt of court after it was alleged that Seselj authored a book revealing pertinent information about several key witnesses. The book is believed to have been published after a protective order was placed by the court to keep the identity [...]
Discharging key campaign pledges on his third day in office, US President Barack Obama expressly banned US use of torture in interrogations and directed the immediate shutdown of CIA detention facilities in a third executive order on US detention practices issued Thursday. Declaring its overall intent to improve the effectiveness of human intelligence gathering, to [...]
Steven R. Shapiro, Robin L. Dahlberg, Dan Barrett , Anthony Franze, Robert Stolworthy and Stanton Jones : "On January 13, 2009, the Supreme Court heard argument in Vermont v. Brillon, which addressed whether trial delays caused by underfunding, mismanagement, and breakdowns in the State's public defense system deprived an indigent defendant whose trial was delayed [...]
Turkish police on Thursday arrested approximately 30 more people, including eight army officers, nine policemen, and a union leader, in an investigation of an alleged plot to overthrow the government of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) . The latest arrests included journalist Unal Inanc, political polling analyst Erhan Goksel, Turkish Metal Union Chairman [...]
A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced two people to death and several to life imprisonment for their involvement in the melamine-tainted milk scandal that sickened almost 300,000 children and killed at least six. Chairwoman of the now-bankrupt Sanlu Group Tian Wenhua pleaded guilty in December and received a life sentence Thursday. The Shijiazhuang court ordered [...]
US President Barack Obama issued an executive order Thursday directing that the Guantanamo Bay military prison be closed "as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order." The order also instructed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to immediately halt military commission proceedings pending a comprehensive review of all [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Wednesday ruled that an Illinois state law requiring a moment of silence in public schools is unconstitutional. Judge Robert Gettleman held that the Illinois Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act , which requires state schools to observe a moment of silence [...]
Dawn S. Sherman, a minor, through Robert I. Sherman, her father and next friend, on behalf of herself and all other similarly situated, v. Township High School District 214, US District Court for the Northern of Illinois, January 21, 2009 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday ended a decade-long battle by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to have the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA) declared constitutional by denying certiorari in the case of Mukasey v. ACLU . By denying review, the Court has decided that the law, which imposes civil and criminal [...]
