Giovanni Di Stefano applauds the US refusal to transfer al-Majid and his co-defendants to Iraqi custody for execution until a Iraqi legal debate on the executions is resolved. Di Stefano adds this official statement from the al-Majid defense team: "We from the Defence Lawyers appreciate and applaud the stance taken by the US Government in [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Sadaf Aziz of the Lahore University of Management Sciences Faculty of Law in Lahore, Pakistan, says that the government’s use of plainclothes thugs to brutally suppress dissent and protest in the present "emergency" makes it clear that Pakistan's citizens have been divested of basic rights to the point where they have no [...]

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) announced formal charges Tuesday against former Cambodian Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, who served as minister for social affairs. The two were arrested Monday and are both charged with crimes against humanity committed during the Khmer Rouge regime. Sary is also charged [...]

Pakistani riot police blocked former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from leading a planned 160-mile march from Lahore to Islamabad Tuesday protesting President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule . Bhutto was placed under house arrest for seven days early Tuesday when riot police used barbed wire and dump trucks loaded with sand to barricade [...]

The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) has threatened to suspend Pakistan from the Commonwealth if it does not end emergency rule by November 22. The group also called on Pakistan to release all detainees, restore the constitution and the independence of the judiciary, and have Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf resign as army chief by the [...]

A Japanese parliamentary committee Monday approved a controversial anti-terror bill re-authorizing Japan's support mission for US operations in the Indian Ocean. Under the bill, Japanese ships will be barred from refueling US ships involved in combat or humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, but will be allowed to refuel ships involved in anti-terrorism or anti-smuggling patrols. The [...]

The White House must preserve all of its e-mail records by saving back-up disks, United States District Court Judge Henry Kennedy ordered Monday. The order was a blow to the Bush administration, which has been fighting lawsuits brought by private advocacy groups Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archives [...]

The trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a decision Monday setting the trial date for former Union of Patriotic Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga for March 31, 2008. The trial chamber also set December 14 as the date when prosecutors must turn over all evidence to Lubanga's defense lawyers. Lubanga is charged [...]

The reconstituted Supreme Court of Pakistan led by Musharraf emergency appointee Abdul Hameed Dogar indicated Monday that its full bench will hear a petition later this week challenging General Pervez Musharraf's November 3 declaration of emergency rule . Pakistan's independent Geo TV reports that former provincial minister Tikka Iqbal is arguing that only the president, [...]

Pakistani lawyers began returning to work in some of the country's lower courts Monday, one week after thousands of lawyers and law students protested against President Pervez Musharraf's proclamation of emergency rule , suspension of the constitution and dismissal of the country's Supreme Court. Following a Pakistan Bar Council call Friday, the lawyers agreed to [...]