The International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague announced Friday that hearings in a case involving France and Djibouti will begin January 21, 2008. The dispute between the two countries is over whether a French judge has the authority to summon high-level Djibouti witnesses to investigate the possible assassination of French judge Bernard Borrel [...]
United States of America v. Steven J. Rosen, and Keith Weissman, US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, November 2, 2007 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Amnesty International Friday urged governments worldwide not to transfer genocide suspects to Rwanda until fair trials there can be guaranteed. The human rights group is concerned about the Rwandan justice system's fairness and impartiality with respect to international standards of justice. The director of the group's Africa Programme, Erwin van der Borght, said: The various [...]
The Supreme Court of Pakistan judge presiding over the case challenging the legality of President Pervez Musharraf's re-election bid said Friday that the court will move ahead with hearings and will likely issue a verdict by November 6. Although Judge Javed Iqbal has previously said that hearings would be delayed until November 12, he said [...]
US Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said Friday that he will not support the nomination of Michael Mukasey as US attorney general, citing Mukasey's continuing reluctance to unequivocally denounce waterboarding as torture. Mukasey must receive ten votes from the Senate Judiciary Committee for his nomination to advance to the full Senate with a [...]
The Chad Supreme Court ruled Friday that a group of European citizens connected to the attempt by French charity Zoe's Arc to fly 103 children believed to be orphans from the embattled Darfur region of Sudan to France will be transferred to stand trial in the capital of N'Djamena. Six French nationals have been charged [...]
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit heard arguments Thursday on whether a 2003 Virginia law banning so-called partial-birth abortions is constitutional. In a 2-1 split in 2005, a panel of judges on the same court ruled the law unconstitutional because it lacked an an exception to protect the [...]
The UN Human Rights Committee Friday called on Libya to end the use of torture and to investigate torture allegations by five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who had been detained in Libya for eight years on suspicions that they deliberately infected hundreds of Libyan children with the HIV virus . The call came [...]
Canada's ruling Conservative Party government said Thursday that it will not ask Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer to commute the death sentence of a Canadian-born man on death row in Montana . The announcement marks a sharp departure in Canadian foreign policy; the Canadian government has traditionally tried to save Canadians from execution in foreign countries. [...]
Two environmental advocacy groups Thursday filed an amended complaint challenging the constitutionality of the Real ID Act in response to actions taken by US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff last month. Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club argued that Chertoff violated the constitutional separation of powers by using his power under the Real ID [...]