The International Criminal Court (ICC) Wednesday ordered the release of Congolese ex-militia leader Thomas Lubanga after finding that past prosecutorial misconduct would prevent him from having a fair trial. The release order will go into effect in five days, barring an appeal by prosecutors and assuming the completion of transfer arrangements with a "state that [...]

Aleksandra (Sasha) Williams, Pitt Law '10, files from Kiev: The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts, especially if some of those parts do not make it into a suitcase during a 20 minute frantic packing effort with the airport taxi already waiting outside. Thus, a digital camera missing a battery charger [...]

Washington DC police are launching a new voluntary program to reduce the number of guns in the city after the US Supreme Court ruled last month that a city ban on private handgun ownership violated the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. Under the Safe Homes Initiative , police will ask residents for permission to [...]

Belgium's Court of Cassation Tuesday approved the transfer of former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba to the International Criminal Court (ICC) where he will face prosecution for war crimes. Bemba, who was arrested by Belgian authorities in May, had challenged the move by alleging that authorities did not follow proper procedures. [...]

Private security contractors operating in Iraq will no longer receive immunity from prosecution under a US-Iraqi agreement now in negotiation, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP Tuesday. Contractors have worked largely above the law due to legal loopholes because the US government exempted its employees and contractors from Iraqi law when Iraq was still under [...]

ICE Policies Related to Detainee Deaths and the Oversight of Immigration Detention Facilities, US Department of Homeland Security – Office of the Inspector General, June 11, 2008 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Cambodian lawyer representing former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan before the Extraordinary Chambers of the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) resigned Tuesday, citing health problems. Some have speculated that Say Bory's resignation is related to controversial tactics employed by French co-counsel Jacques Verges . In February, Verges said that Samphan was ending his [...]

A divison of the New York State Supreme Court dismissed remaining charges against former New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) CEO Richard Grasso on Tuesday. Former NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had brought six charges against Grasso over his controversial $187.5 million compensation package from NYSE. Four of the charges were dismissed in May 2007. The two [...]

A proposed Ethiopian law regulating non-governmental organizations, which it terms Civil Society Organizations (CSO), would severely undermine human rights efforts in the country, according to two separate reports issued Tuesday by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) . The groups said that Ethiopia's Charities and Societies Proclamation would bar foreign CSOs from engaging in [...]

The Supreme Court of Rhode Island Tuesday overturned a 2006 jury verdict holding paint manufacturers liable for contamination caused by lead-based paint. The court rejected state arguments that the paint companies had created a public nuisance, finding that they had no control over how the paint was used: But however grave the problem of lead [...]