A proposal to create a special competition court within the European Union Court of First Instance has been publicly endorsed by the Court's head justice, who called it the best "if not the only effective way of ensuring speedier and perhaps even better handling of competition cases" at a conference in London. Court President Bo [...]

An Ontario Superior Court judge struck down a central provision of Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act Tuesday, saying it violates the constitutional rights of Momin Khawaja . Lawyers for Khawaja, the first person charged under the terrorism legislation, had argued that the legislation passed in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks on the US is [...]

A seven-man Rwandan government commission began an official probe Tuesday into accusations that France assisted a Hutu massacre of Tutsis during the 1994 genocide . Rwanda's current Tutsi President Paul Kagame has accused France of training and arming Hutu militias who were behind the 100-day massacre that left over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus dead. The [...]

European Union officials said Tuesday that the EU has reached an agreement with the US to allow EU transnational organized crime-fighting body Eurojust and US prosecutors to share information about investigations on terrorism and cross-border criminal cases. The EU and and US are expected to formally sign the agreement on November 6. Human rights groups, [...]

Kristin Jones : "Journalist Yang Xiaoqing's imprisonment caught the attention of ordinary people in China who recognized it as the case of a man who had taken on powerful officials in his home county and was paying the price. Without the vocal advocacy of his wife Gong Jie, supporters like Internet journalist Li Xinde and [...]

Fifteen Nobel Peace Prize laureates sent a letter to United Nations member states Tuesday urging the UN General Assembly to explore an arms-trade treaty. The letter signers said they believe it "imperative for humanity that the number of deaths caused by firearms be reduced." They recommended passage of an international arms sales resolution that would [...]

The US Department of Education announced Tuesday that it is changing its regulations in order to allow public schools more discretion in providing for the separate education of boys and girls. The changes, to be published Wednesday in the Federal Register, will affect how anti-discrimination provisions in Title IX are applied by allowing same-sex classes [...]

The US government has filed a civil lawsuit against the estate of former Enron chairman Ken Lay , seeking $12.7 million. The Justice Department brought suit Monday "to recover property that constitutes proceeds of the fraud proven in the criminal case." Last week, a federal judge vacated Lay's convictions on fraud and conspiracy charges because [...]

A Dutch court took steps Monday to obtain testimony from Saddam Hussein in an appeal by a Dutch businessman convicted of selling chemicals that were used in poison gas attacks in Iraq. Frans Van Anraat was convicted last year of selling raw materials to Iraq that ultimately were used in the 1988 gas attack against [...]

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 , the second portion of a two-part plan to tackle illegal immigration in the US, was sent to President George Bush Monday for his signature. The bill allows the US Secretary of Homeland Security to begin using $1.2 billion earmarked for the construction of a border control fence to [...]