Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary General, General Assembly Security Council, December 21, 2007 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Judith Sutherland : "On February 7, 2008, the French parliament enacted a law allowing for the continued detention of offenders who have already completed their prison sentences, purportedly to prevent them re-offending. The law empowers a commission of three judges to impose an additional one-year term in special detention centers if an offender is found [...]

A Turkish court sentenced a lawyer to life in prison Wednesday for the murder of Turkish Judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin in May 2006. Alparslan Arslan was accused of opening fire in Turkey's highest administrative court, the Council of State , to protest a February 2006 ruling by the court permitting a school to deny promotion [...]

The US Senate voted 51-45 Wednesday to approve the conference report for an intelligence funding bill , which includes a provision that would restrict CIA interrogators to using only those interrogation techniques explicitly authorized by the 2006 Army Field Manual. Field Manual 2-22.3 , Human Intelligence Collector Operations, explicitly prohibits the use of waterboarding , [...]

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey discussed ongoing DOJ efforts to promote the rule of law in Iraq during his first official trip to Baghdad Wednesday. Mukasey met with three high ranking judiciary officials, including the head of Iraq's Higher Judicial Council Chief Judge Medhat al-Mahmoud, to discuss US efforts to aid in the establishment of [...]

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) plans to try as many as eight suspects on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer Rouge communist regime of the 1970s, according to an ECCC planning document reported by AP on Wednesday. The document also indicates that the [...]

EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security Franco Frattini Wednesday unveiled a comprehensive new border management package on behalf of the European Commission. The border security improvement initiative includes proposals for the creation of a European Border Surveillance System to prevent unauthorized border crossings and the development of new tools for an integrated European Border [...]

A judge for the International Criminal Court (ICC) said Wednesday that the trial of former Union of Patriotic Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga will likely be postponed for at least two months to allow defense lawyers sufficient time to prepare their case. In November 2007, the ICC set Lubanga's trial date for March 31, 2008, [...]

A media and financial tycoon who was recently charged with a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the Georgian Republic was found dead in his mansion near London Wednesday. A spokesman for Badri Patarkatsishvili said that Patarkatsishvili was believed to have died of heart failure, but police are treating his death as suspicious. In December [...]

US President George W. Bush Wednesday urged the House of Representatives to immediately pass the version of the FISA Amendments Act passed by the Senate this week. The US Senate voted 68-29 Tuesday to pass the legislation, which is intended to "modernize" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and replace the temporary Protect America Act , [...]