Serb nationalist leader and war crimes defendant Vojislav Seselj used his opening statement at his trial Thursday to call the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) "illegal and illegitimate," and accused the court of an impermissible bias against Serb defendants. Seselj, accused of establishing rogue paramilitary units responsible for massacring and otherwise persecuting [...]

Bangladesh police on Wednesday arrested an associate of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia on suspicion of instigating street demonstrations in violation of the ban on assembly, one of the freedoms restricted in January when the military government declared a state of emergency . Hannan Shah, a former military officer and an outspoken member of [...]

Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti filed suit in state court Wednesday against the state's six largest insurance companies, including Allstate and State Farm, alleging the companies conspired to fix payouts for damages related to Hurricane Katrina in violation of the Louisiana Monopolization Act. According to Foti's statement, as reported by the Times-Picayune: This alleged [...]

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday denounced the state of emergency imposed Wednesday in the neighboring Georgian Republic as "a gross violation of human rights and democratic freedom." Russia urged the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the international community to call on Georgia to "fully [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Sadaf Aziz of the Lahore University of Management Sciences Faculty of Law, in Lahore, Pakistan, says that President Pervez Musharraf's continued leadership of Pakistan in an ostensibly civilian capacity while still Army Chief reflects an unresolved but fundamental tension between democracy and dictatorship… The emergency measures provision of the Pakistani Constitution can [...]

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 235-184 in favor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act , legislation that would extend protections against workplace discrimination to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. The bill covers hiring and firing practices, the setting of compensation levels, and promotion determinations, and makes it illegal for employers to consider an employee's [...]

The government of Nigeria filed a lawsuit in a Nigerian federal court Wednesday against local tobacco producer International Tobacco Company, Ltd. and international tobacco producers British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris International . The lawsuit seeks upwards of $40 billion in damages for costs for the treatment of tobacco-related diseases in Nigeria and for [...]

Increasing institutionalization of racist political ideologies and violent expressions of racism seriously threaten democracy and human rights, a United Nations expert told the General Assembly Wednesday. In his report to the General Assembly's Third Committee , UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance Doudou Diene wrote that ethical [...]

The Florida Supreme Court issued a 5-2 order Wednesday denying a stay of execution for death row inmate Mark Dean Schwab . The court ruled last week that the state could proceed with Schwab's execution after finding that Florida's revised lethal injection protocol does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment . The US Supreme Court [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Wednesday ordered eight Croatian journalists to be questioned about possible contempt of court violations for revealing confidential information. Three national television journalists and five newspaper writers will be investigated for revealing confidential portions of indictments against former generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac . The [...]