Russian Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov unexpectedly quit Friday after Russian President Vladimir Putin recommended to the Russian upper house – the Federation Council – that Ustinov be asked to step down from office. The upper house approved Ustinov's removal by a vote of 140-0, with two abstentions. According to the speaker of the Federation Council, Sergei [...]
Court-martial proceedings for 15 US soldiers implicated in the abuse of detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, including the beating deaths of two Afghanis , ended in Fort Bliss, Texas on Thursday with only one conviction, resulting in a demotion in rank and three months in prison for former Pfc. Willie V. Brand. Three [...]
Canada's Federal Court Thursday stayed the deportation to China of Lai Changxing , the alleged leader of a Xiamen-based network suspected of smuggling up to $10 billion of goods such as cigarettes, automobiles, heating and cooking oil, textiles, chemicals and other raw materials under the protection of corrupt Chinese government officials. Justice Carolyn Layden-Stevenson stayed [...]
New Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Friday that he will ask the United States to turn over its files pertaining to the investigation into the alleged killing of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha by US Marines last November, after the Iraqi cabinet on Thursday decided to launch its own probe into the Haditha [...]
US military prosecutors plan to file conspiracy and murder charges against seven enlisted Marines and one Navy corpsman for the alleged murder of an Iraqi civilian and subsequent cover-up on April 26 in Hamandiya, according to a defense lawyer for one of the men involved. US commanders in Iraq ordered the Naval Criminal Investigative Service [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Geoffrey S. Corn, Lt. Col. US Army (Ret.) and former Special Assistant to the Judge Advocate General for Law of War Matters, now a professor at South Texas College of Law, says that the killings of Iraqi civilians at Haditha, like the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, illustrate critical aspects [...]
Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, Hans Blix, Chairman, June 1, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
A study by the independent Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission , headed by former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix , has called for a total ban on the possession and use of nuclear weapons . At a UN press conference, Blix said the report, titled “Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological [...]
After re-examining the costs of cleaning up remaining oil from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill , the US Justice Department and the state of Alaska said Thursday that they would use a "reopener" provision in an earlier agreement with ExxonMobil and seek $92 million in unforeseen damages. "After extensive review it is clear that populations [...]
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to support President Bush's deployment of National Guard troops along the Mexican border by sending 1,000 Guard members from California to join the effort. As part of the agreement, the federal government will reportedly cover the cost of sending the troops, who will aid the US Border Patrol. Schwarzenegger [...]
