The US House of Representatives Tuesday approved a bill limiting protests during military funerals. The Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act is aimed mainly at the renegade Westboro Baptist Church led by the Rev. Fred Phelps in Topeka, Kansas. The group claims US soldiers have been killed because America tolerates homosexuals. The bill seeks to [...]
Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark , now serving as a defense lawyer for ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein , called the trial of the former Iraqi leader "a direct threat to international law, the United Nations, universal human rights and world peace" on Tuesday before demanding that the Iraqi Special Tribunal transfer the proceedings [...]
Leading Wednesday's international brief, the High Court in London has recommended that the UK hacker behind unprecedented attacks on US military computer systems in late 2001 and early 2002 be extradited to the US to face criminal charges . Gary McKinnon is allegedly responsible for hacking into computer networks operated by several military branches as [...]
US senators working towards a compromise on key sections of an immigration reform bill they hope to vote on by Memorial Day have tentatively agreed to toughen rules on the hiring of illegal immigrants by forcing employers to check Social Security numbers and investigate the immigration status of potential employees. The current Immigration Reform and [...]
US District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina has ruled that a lawsuit against US officials brought by four British citizens formerly held at Guantanamo who claim their religious freedoms were infringed during detention may go forward. Urbina found that because the Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to territories and possessions of the United States, it applies [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Glenn Sulmasy, a professor of law at the US Coast Guard Academy, says it's time for US military commissions to evolve and morph into a national security court appropriate to handle the international jihadist threat… The Global War on Terror has created ambiguities in both the laws of armed conflict and how [...]
Committee Against Torture, presentation by the United States, May 5-8, 2006. Read the remarks by U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser John Bellinger at the May 5 meeting; the written presentation by the United States to the Committee (responses to questions); the summary of responses by the United States to initial questions from the Committee [...]
The UN General Assembly Tuesday elected 47 member states to founding seats on the new UN Human Rights Council . The successful candidates included Russia and China, which recently have come under US criticism for restrictive human rights practices. Seats also went to Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, similarly characterized by the US and international [...]
After Iranian lawmakers on Sunday sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan threatening to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if Annan and other members of the UN Security Council failed "in their crucial responsibility to resolve differences peacefully" with regard to Iran's nuclear program, Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani said Tuesday that Iran's [...]
A 13-member delegation of European Union officials arrived in Washington on Tuesday and began meeting with Bush administration officials, members of the US House and Senate and other officials in Washington as part of a European Parliament inquiry into whether European countries were involved in clandestine CIA prisons or flights moving suspected terrorists. According to [...]
