The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) began the war crimes trial of two former Serb paramilitary commanders Monday. Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic are charged with murder, persecution, forced deportations and inhuman acts during the 1991-95 Balkan wars. Both men have pleaded not guilty and face life sentences if convicted. Their trial [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that recently disclosed US Department of Justice letters to US Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden (D-OR) on detainee interrogations reflect a misleading and erroneous understanding of the Geneva Conventions in the Bush Administration… Two recently disclosed letters from Principal Deputy Assistant [...]
Sahr MuhammedAlly : "While pre-trial motions continue at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, at other end of the globe in Afghanistan more than 60 former Guantánamo and Bagram detainees have been convicted based on little more than mere allegations by the United States. After years of detention in U.S. custody without any due process, these detainees, although [...]
US House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) Monday threatened to seek subpoenas to compel three current and former administration officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft , to testify about a recently released Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memorandum that advised the US Department of Defense that military interrogators could employ a [...]
Top members of Pakistan's government coalition have met to continue their discussion of proposals for restoring judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf last year after he declared emergency rule , according to Monday media reports. The two leading coalition parties, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People's Party , reportedly disagree on the amount [...]
Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, US Supreme Court, April 28, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer resumed settlement negotiations with the Nigerian state of Kano for allegedly illegal clinical trials conducted by the drug company, Kano state Justice Commissioner Aliyu Umar said Monday. Pfizer is accused of administering 200 Nigerian children with meningitis medication – including 100 with the then-experimental anti-biotic Trovan – without the authorization of [...]
Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan said Monday that he will join fellow detainees in a boycott of his upcoming military commission trial. Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden who has been in US custody since 2001, said at a pre-trial hearing that he will not participate in the trial and will [...]
The UN Security Council should push the US to address human rights concerns over policies governing detainees held by US-led coalition forces in Iraq, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a Monday letter to Council representatives. HRW accused the Multi-National Force-Iraq of holding thousands of detainees without proper judicial review, and said that MNF-I is [...]
Spain's National Court on Monday ruled that former Argentinean President Isabel Peron would not be extradited to face charges in Argentina related to her alleged role in "Dirty War" disappearances before she left office in 1976. The court found that the charges against Peron did not amount to crimes against humanity and that therefore the [...]
