The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit against private security contractor Blackwater USA Thursday on behalf of an injured survivor and the families of 3 men killed during a September 16 shooting incident in Baghdad that took the lives of 17 Iraqi civilians. The complaint submitted in the US District Court for [...]

Human Rights Report 1 April – 30 June 2007, UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, October 11, 2007 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Corruption in China's ruling Communist Party could ultimately result in political and economic destabilization within the country , according to a new report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace . The report, written by Carnegie Endowment Senior Associate Minxin Pei , says that approximately 10 percent of government spending goes to officials who award [...]

The number of extrajudicial killings in Colombia at the hands of the Colombian military has almost doubled since 1997, according to a new report by a international conglomerate of human rights workers. The International Observation Mission on Extrajudicial Executions and Impunity in Colombia found there have been approximately 950 documented illegal killings in the last [...]

President Abdullah Gul of Turkey blasted the US House Foreign Relations Committee Thursday for approving a resolution declaring the World War I-era killings of over one million Armenians by Turkish soldiers genocide. Gul released a statement on the resolution: It's a pity that some politicians in the United States closed their ears to calls of [...]

Spain's National Court will announce verdicts and sentences for the 28 defendants in the 2004 Madrid train bombing case on October 31, a court spokesperson said Wednesday. The 28 defendants , mostly of Moroccan descent, were charged with 192 counts of murder and upwards of 1,800 counts of attempted murder related to the March 11, [...]

Former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has hired an attorney as the DOJ and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) continue their investigations into allegations that Gonzales may have perjured himself before Congress. Gonzales hired former DOJ second-in-command George Terwilliger of the Washington, D.C. firm White & Case to represent him. The investigations are ongoing [...]

The US government should investigate and, if necessary, prosecute private contractors for killing Iraqis without cause, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said in a report released Thursday. The UNAMI report warns the US that employing private contractors to provide security in high-tension areas impermissably blurs the distinction between civilians and military combatants [...]

A federal judge on Wednesday granted a temporary restraining order sought by two environmental advocacy groups to enjoin the Bureau of Land Management from building a 1.5 mile US-Mexico border fence over the San Pedro river until an appropriate environmental impact assessment is completed. US District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the US District Court [...]

Illinois pharmacists who morally object to dispensing Plan B, the "morning-after" pill, will be permitted to refuse to fill prescriptions for the drug but must work with another pharmacist by phone to dispense the contraceptive, under a settlement submitted to an Illinois legislative panel on Thursday. Pharmacists sued the state in 2005 after Governor Rod [...]