A former top Chinese Communist Party official was convicted Friday of corruption and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Chen Liangyu was found guilty of accepting bribes and abuse of power, making Chen the highest ranking official to be convicted in China's recent crackdown on corruption . He was fired in 2006 after being [...]

US Vice President Dick Cheney and other top White House officials approved controversial interrogation methods, including waterboarding , in secret meetings, AP reported Friday. An unnamed former senior intelligence official confirmed an earlier ABC News report that the officials asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to sign off on the lawfulness of the techniques before [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Ophélie Namiech, a Legacy Heritage Fellow working for UN Watch in Geneva, says that to restore the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council governments that care about human rights must commit themselves to do everything in their power to ensure that the current Universal Periodic Review process succeeds… When the [...]

Charles R. McNabb, v. Department of Corrections, et al., Supreme Court of the State of Washington, April 10, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Guards at Guantanamo Bay have confiscated several unapproved items, including news articles printed off the Internet and a "Lord of the Rings" movie script, from Canadian detainee Omar Khadr , officials said Thursday. Khadr's appointed US military lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler, said that he gave Khadr the unapproved materials to help establish a rapport [...]

Egyptian prosecutors Thursday charged the co-founder of pro-reform opposition movement Kifaya with inciting unrest and violence in association with a nationwide labor strike last Sunday. George Ishaq and 60 other members of the Kifaya movement were arrested in a Wednesday night police sweep. Kifaya leadership has said the arrests are retaliation for Sunday's strike, which [...]

The National Council of the Slovak Republic voted 103-5 Thursday to ratify the EU reform treaty , formally known as the Treaty of Lisbon . Previous attempts to vote on the treaty had ended in walkouts by opposition MPs in protest over a domestic media reform law endorsed by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, but [...]

The White House's interpretation of executive privilege to shield former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and current White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten from Congressional subpoenas represents the broadest construction of the doctrine since Watergate, lawyers for the US House Judiciary Committee told the US District Court for the District of Columbia in court [...]

Twenty-one families who said that they intended to sue the state of Virginia for negligence in connection with the April 16, 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech have agreed to a tentative settlement worth $11 million, lawyers representing the families said Thursday. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said that the details of the settlement would remain [...]

Representatives from the 47 members of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Thursday criticized the human rights record of the United Kingdom , including the government's treatment of terror suspects and prisoners, as the body continued its new Universal Periodic Review of rights practices around the world. During debate, several countries expressed concern about [...]