Prominent human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith said Sunday he expects detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay to be closed after US President George Bush leaves office next year, adding that the recent dismissal of military commission charges against detainees Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan were "another nail in the coffin for Guantanamo." Smith also [...]
The US Supreme Court handed down decisions in three cases Monday, including Credit Suisse First Boston v. Billing , where the Court held that federal antitrust laws do not apply to a case where investors filed a class action lawsuit against underwriters and institutional investors for their alleged manipulation of initial public offerings. The Court [...]
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) chair Luis Alfonso de Alba urged the 47-member body Sunday to approve a series of reforms designed to mandate periodic review of all UN member states. De Alba called for the internal rules to be adopted by the conclusion of the 5th session of the Human Rights Council on Monday, [...]
The Japanese Supreme Court has rejected the appeals of Chinese nationals seeking compensation for being forced to work in Japan as slave laborers during World War II, ruling that Japan's 20-year statute of limitations barred their claims. The 42 original plaintiffs, only half of whom are still alive, filed suit in 1997 seeking compensation from [...]
Thousands of Pakistanis cheered in support of suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as he arrived in Faisalabad Sunday, completing a two-day procession from Islamabad. Speaking to the crowd, Chaudhry once again called for a more independent judiciary. He said: "The organs of the state cannot function properly unless there is separation of powers as [...]
Montenegro authorities Sunday arrested Vlastimir Djordjevic , a former Serbian police general, for the murder and persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. According to Djordjevic's indictment, he and six other high-ranking Serb officials are accused of the forced deportation of 800,000 Kosovars and the killings of hundreds of ethnic Albanians who had "no [...]
Anthony D'Amato : "Russia is the only Western power that champions Serbia's territorial claim over Kosovo. All other nations want independence for the former Serbian province. As I argued in a previous editorial for JURIST on this subject, I see no basis whatsoever in law for the UN Security Council's assertion of power to dispose [...]
Vietnamese state media Saturday reported the release of 36-year-old lawyer and political dissident Le Quoc Quan , the second pro-democracy dissident released by the Vietnamese government ahead of President Nguyen Minh Tribet's June visit to the United States. Quan, who has detained since March 8, was charged with violating Article 88 of the Vietnamese criminal [...]
US District Judge William M. Acker Jr. of the Northern District of Alabama Friday asked federal prosecutors to charge prominent Mississippi plaintiff's attorney Richard Scruggs with criminal contempt, saying that Scruggs "willfully violated" a preliminary injunction ordering Scruggs to turn over all documents secretly copied by two whistleblowers who allege that State Farm Insurance Co. [...]
The US District Court for the District of Colombia Friday ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to release approximately 100,000 pages of documents detailing the FBI's use of national security letters (NSL) pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) . The order set a July 5 [...]
