US District Judge Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California Friday stayed until March 24 a challenge to the implementation of new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulations intended to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to obtain US employment. Breyer granted a government motion seeking to halt the court proceedings while [...]

Letter from French prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin to FIDH lawyer Patrick Boudoin, November 16, 2007 . Read the full text of the letter . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

John Lott : "The District of Columbia's request for cert made a simple argument: Whatever one thinks of the Second Amendment, banning handguns is a "reasonable regulation" to protect public safety. Indeed, most of the city's brief focused on public safety arguments. The problem for the city is that anyone who can look up the [...]

Former chess champion and liberal United Civil Front leader Garry Kasparov was arrested Saturday at a demonstration in Moscow against President Vladimir Putin , two weeks before parliamentary elections. AP reports that Kasparov was sentenced to five days in jail for organizing an unsanctioned protest. He was also charged with resisting arrest, which he denied. [...]

Lawyers across Pakistan's populous Sindh province went on strike Friday to protest President Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule. Lawyers observed a strike call from the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) at the Sindh High Court in Karachi, causing cases to be rescheduled. Sindh lawyers had previously engaged in a token one-hour boycott of lower courts. Pakistan's News [...]

The UN Committee against Torture said Friday it was concerned about ill-treatment and torture of detainees by Uzbekistan law enforcement officials. The committee issued a report concluding a three-week meeting in Geneva where it reviewed the compliance of six countries with the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [...]

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak was charged Friday with fraud and attempting to embezzle $43.3 million in state funds, according to his lawyer. After an initial investigation the Russian Prosecutor General's Office accused Storchak of working with Sodexim head Viktor Zakharov and Interregional Investment Bank chairman Vadim Volkov to take funds from a Russian [...]

French prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin has dismissed a war crimes claim against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld alleging that Rumsfeld authorized US personnel to torture prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, according to a lawyer for the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) on Friday. The complaint was filed in October on [...]

Constitution Petition Nos. 87 and 88 of 2007, Supreme Court of Pakistan, November 23, 2007 . Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Lebanon slid into constitutional crisis Friday as pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud purported to declare a "state of emergency" and hand security responsibility to the army in a vaguely worded statement issued just before leaving office midnight at the end of his term without an elected successor in place. Earlier Friday, anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian factions in [...]