Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that he views a decision by US lawmakers to postpone debate on a resolution labeling as genocide the World War I-era killings of over one million Armenians by Turkish soldiers with "cautious optimism." Erdogan commented Monday after talks with US President George W. Bush, thanking the Bush [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist William G. Ross of Cumberland School of Law, Samford University says despite US attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey's success in winning approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the full Senate should take all the time it needs to consider his nomination even though the next attorney general is unlikely to serve past [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Moeen Cheema, professor of Law & Policy at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore, Pakistan, says that the nature of the charges laid against hundreds of Lahore lawyers arrested after their recent mass protest against the imposition of emergency rule shows that General Pervez Musharraf is waging his real "war [...]

Pakistan's Attorney General Malik Qayyum told Pakistan's News daily Monday night that the government has reduced the size of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to 12 and would elevate lower court judges to fill out the complement of the restructured court as most of its original justices have refused to take a new oath under [...]

Dismissed Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry Tuesday urged lawyers in Pakistan to resist President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule and "stand up for the constitution." Speaking by telephone to a gathering of lawyers in the capital Islamabad, Chaudhry, currently under effective house arrest, said according to an AFP report, "I want lawyers to spread [...]

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for countries to hold to treaties restricting chemical and explosive weapons in remarks at two separate meetings Monday. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Sergio Duarte read Ban's statement during a conference on the Chemical Weapons Convention at The Hague. Over 180 countries have already joined the Convention, but Ban noted [...]

Florida death row inmate Ian Deco Lightbourne on Monday asked the state supreme court to reconsider its decision last week that Florida's revised lethal injection protocols do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the US Constitution. The Florida Supreme Court issued two decisions last week in challenges filed by Lightbourne and fellow [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in Kentucky v. Davis , 06-666 , to determine whether a state violates the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution when it taxes bonds issued by other states, but does not tax its own bonds. The case was filed by a couple from Kentucky who allege that [...]

Iranian officials have halted formal attempts to stop an expected Interpol vote Wednesday to issue arrest notices for six men thought to be connected with the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center , Interpol officials said Monday. Argentinean officials investigating the bombing, which killed 85 and wounded hundreds more, allege that Iran [...]

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals Monday rejected an appeal for a new trial brought by convicted Washington, DC-area sniper John Allen Muhammad . Muhammad had appealed the lower court's rulings that he was mentally competent to stand trial, and that he could represent himself. In the court's opinion affirming Muhammad's conviction Monday, Judge Charles [...]