The European Commission (EC) , the executive branch of the European Union, is still awaiting appropriate responses from Romania and Poland regarding allegations that they assisted the CIA in operating secret prisons for terror suspects, an EC spokesperson said Friday. The spokesperson said that Romania has sent a response, but that it was not complete [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Friday upheld the dismissal of a case brought by approximately three million Vietnamese plaintiffs against more than 30 American chemical companies for producing and supplying defoliants, including Agent Orange , that US forces used during the Vietnam war. The Court also ruled Friday in another defoliant [...]
David Bermingham, one of three British bankers known as the NatWest Three was sentenced to over three years in prison Friday after pleading guilty in November to one count of wire fraud. Bermingham, along with Giles Darby and Gary Mulgrew, was indicted on seven counts of wire fraud for entering into a secret agreement with [...]
The appeals chamber of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone on Friday upheld the sentences of three former leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council who were convicted of crimes against humanity. In July 2007, the court sentenced Brima Bazzy Kamara to 45 years in prison, while Alex Tamba Brima and Santigie Borbor Kanu [...]
Delegates failed to agree on a binding treaty banning cluster bombs by the end of a five-day conference organized by Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) in New Zealand Friday, but have agreed to continue negotiations at a May conference in Dublin. By Friday, conference organizers said that 82 countries had signed the so-called Wellington Declaration , [...]
The National Parliament of East Timor voted Friday to further extend the country's state of emergency , which was set to expire Saturday, by an additional 30 days. Last week, the parliament extended the state of emergency in response to attacks against East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao . East [...]
The British House of Commons approved an order Thursday extending until March 2009 provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 regarding control orders, which impose restrictions on uncharged terror suspects. The measure was approved by a margin of 267-60. The UK's counter-terrorism law ombudsman said in his third annual report Monday that individual control [...]
James Tobin , President Bush's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, was acquitted Thursday of federal telephone harassment charges for his alleged role in a 2002 phone-jamming scheme. In his ruling Thursday, US District Judge Steven McAuliffe said he was "constrained" by an earlier appeals court ruling overturning Tobin's previous conviction. Tobin was convicted and [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist John Cerone of New England School of Law, formerly a Human Rights Legal Advisor with the UN Mission in Kosovo, says that given the legal and moral complexity of the Kosovo situation, recent suggestions that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia is unlawful but may nonetheless be "justified" are problematic… From [...]
The US must do more to meet its obligations to fight racial discrimination under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination , UN rights experts from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) said Thursday in a scheduled session to review US compliance with the treaty. Committee [...]
