Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) , chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee , said Friday that US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has promised that his views on abortion will not be a factor in his rulings. Several documents released in recent weeks have highlighted Alito's opposition to abortion, including a 1985 memo authored by Alito [...]
Leading Friday's environmental law news, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection has approved regulations that set "California" emissions standards for new cars and trucks sold in Maine beginning in 2009. Maine becomes the sixth state to adopt the standards, designed to reduce pollution linked to global warming, joining California, Washington, Oregon, New York, and Vermont. [...]
A weak response from the justice system in Kosovo to the 2004 Albanian attacks on Serbs has created an "impression of impunity" for such ethnically motivated crimes, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Friday. Nineteen people died and over 4,000 were forced to flee their homes during mob violence that erupted [...]
Lawyers for Saddam Hussein said they would appeal to a higher Iraqi court if the Iraqi Special Tribunal refuses to divulge the names and backgrounds of four anonymous judges in charge of the trial. Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin is the only one of the five judges to identify himself. Security concerns have led the [...]
The Belarussian parliament on Friday voted 97-4 to approve a law imposing harsh penalties for anyone convicted of inciting demonstrations or spreading harmful information. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko wants the laws to stop anti-government protest movements like Ukraine's Orange Revolution which led to a change in leadership last year. Lukashenko is running for re-election next [...]
Iraqi officials announced on Friday that non-Iraqi Arabs will not be allowed to enter the country as a security measure leading up to the December 15 elections . No end date for the prohibition was set. The ban applies even to those holding valid entry visas . Both Iraqi and US officials anticipate increased violence [...]
A newly-disclosed memo reveals that US Department of Justice staff initially opposed a controversial 2003 Texas redistricting plan as violative of the Voting Rights Act , concluding that Texas "has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect." Senior DOJ officials, however, decided not to [...]
French newspaper Le Figaro reported Friday that two CIA-chartered flights made secret stops in France in 2002 and 2005 , bolstering allegations that the intelligence agency used the flights to transport Islamist terror suspects to secret European prisons for interrogation . The first stopover was made in 2002 by a Learjet private plane in the [...]
The US Department of Defense said Thursday that it plans to move forward in the trial against a 19-year old Canadian citizen who was charged last month with murdering a US Army medic, despite the judicial stays issued in other cases against terror suspects. Omar Ahmed Khadr was captured at the age of 15 and [...]
A United Nations human rights investigator said Friday that prisoner torture in China is declining but is still widespread, and accused Chinese authorities of obstructing his work during a 2-week torture investigation . Manfred Nowak ], Special Rapporteur on Torture for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) , said his investigation uncovered [...]
