Philippines bar leaders, retired judges, attorneys, law schools and business leaders Monday formed an unofficial judicial oversight group dedicated to providing transparency in the selection of seven justices to the Supreme Court of the Philippines in 2009, when current justices retire. The name of the group, Bantay Korte Suprema (BKS), translates to "Watch the Supreme [...]
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Monday after an official visit to Italy that it has "significant human rights concerns" about the facilities where Italy holds irregular migrants and asylum seekers detained on suspicion of criminal activity and the legal basis for those detentions. The Working Group, a group of independent experts that [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday that upon inauguration US president-elect Barack Obama should immediately denounce the previous administration's "abusive" counterterrorism policies in order to bring US practices into accordance with the country's "basic values" and its own obligations under international law. HRW released a report delineating the 11 measures Obama should pursue, including closing [...]
French police on Monday arrested alleged leader of the Basque separatist group ETA Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina near the country's border with Spain. Aspiazu Rubina is suspected of leading the group's armed operations, and was wanted in connection with the murder of a judge and two Spanish civil guard officers. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis [...]
The Parliament of Sudan on Monday approved the appointment of a nine-member independent electoral commission to oversee the country's upcoming elections. Sudanese president Oman al-Bashir along with vice presidents Salva Kiir and Ali Osman Taha nominated the members of the commission earlier this year and the approval finalizes its creation. The commission was formed to [...]
A spokesperson for the Pentagon acknowledged on Sunday while speaking to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that the US held 12 juveniles at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The announcement came in response to a study released last week by the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas [...]
A Moscow District Military Court judge ruled on Monday that the trial of three men accused in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya will be made open to the public . This decision came after the family of the slain journalist requested that the trial remain open despite the prosecution's fear that an open trial [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law says that in the face of the American electorate's desire for "change" and the need to build some measure of bipartisan consensus after a divisive campaign season, the new "lame duck" session of Congress might profitably focus on questions involving the federal [...]
Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on Sunday was taken to a Taipei hospital for treatment of dehydration resulting from a hunger strike he had staged to protest his detention in jail for corruption. While there are no official charges against Chen, the former leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was arrested Tuesday and questioned [...]
The Iraqi cabinet voted Sunday in an emergency session to approve a final draft of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the US and Iraq. The SOFA, which determines the relationship between Iraqi, American and Multi-National Force Iraq (MNF-I) forces in the country, requires US and MNF-I forces to exit Iraqi cities by June [...]
