The UN Security Council on Wednesday unanimously approved the appointment of Serge Brammertz as the new chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) . Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon nominated Brammertz earlier this month to replace outgoing chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte , who will step down at the end of [...]
Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday, seeking to invalidate new regulations that relax disclosure requirements for companies storing or emitting 500 or more pounds of toxins. The civil case will be led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo , and was filed in the US District Court [...]
The last two witnesses for the prosecution in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia case against former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj and two other members of the Kosovo Liberation Army failed to testify on Wednesday citing fears that the ICTY would be unable to protect them. One of the scheduled witnesses was [...]
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stepped down as head of Pakistan's army Wednesday, the day before he is scheduled to take an oath of office as Pakistan's civilian president. Musharraf's role as army chief complicated his recent bid for re-election as president, with several legal challenges filed against him in the Supreme Court of Pakistan . [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Tuesday upheld a district court's dismissal of a lawsuit brought by illegal immigrant detainees over their transfer from Massachusetts to Texas holding centers following a March 6 factory raid in which 360 people were arrested. The district court dismissed the lawsuit because it did not [...]
The judicial panel of the UK House of Lords, also known as the Law Lords, Wednesday upheld a controversial ban on hunting with hounds under the Hunting Act 2004 . The Lords said that overturning the ban, which prohibits fox and deer hunting and rabbit coursing with dogs in England and Wales, would subvert the [...]
Ousted Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry Tuesday urged Pakistan's political parties and people to boycott parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8, saying that they were comprised by being held under unconstitutional emergency rule and should not proceed because Pakistan was in unusual circumstances with the rights of its judges, lawyers and people restricted or [...]
A Greek appeals court Tuesday dismissed criminal charges against former Getty Museum curator Marion True for her alleged involvement in the looting of an ancient gold wreath from Greece. The Los Angeles museum acquired the wreath in 1993, and Greek prosecutors brought charges against True alleging that the artifact had been illegally removed from the [...]
Political arrests in China more than doubled in 2006 compared to the previous year, according to a report Wednesday from human rights group Dui Hua . The 2007 Chinese Law Yearbook revealed that the state arrested 604 individuals for "endangering state security" in 2006, the highest number since 2002. In 2005, China arrested 296 individuals [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Haider Ala Hamoudi of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that the Sunni-Shi’i divide in the Iraqi parliament is only one split complicating the passage of controversial legislation in the troubled state… Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that the ability of Iraq’s legislative body, the National Assembly, to pass crucial [...]
