India's Ministry of Women and Child Development announced plans Tuesday to toughen existing laws prohibiting the archaic Hindu funeral custom of sati , in which widows are expected to self-immolate on their deceased husbands' funeral pyre, by holding entire communities criminally responsible and increasing the maximum punishment from the current seven years imprisonment to life. [...]

Secretary for Justice v. Yau Yuk Lung Zigo and Lee Kam Chuen, Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, July 17, 2007 . Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Indonesian Constitutional Court Tuesday voided Articles 154 and 155 of the Indonesian criminal code prohibiting acts of inciting hatred against the government or the distribution of materials voicing opposition against the government, ruling that Dutch colonial-era articles violated the freedom of expression guaranteed in the 1945 Indonesian Constitution . The ruling stems from an [...]

China's Shanxi province High People's Court Tuesday announced the completion of 7 trials and verdicts against 29 defendants accused of involvement in the use of slave labor at various brick kilns in the Shanxi and Henan provinces Tuesday, sentencing kiln bosses, foremen, and other workers to punishments ranging from 18 months to 9 year prison [...]

Lawyers and rights groups joined in criticism of Australia's continued detention of UK terror suspect Dr. Mohammad Haneef Tuesday, saying that the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship's decision to revoke Haneef's work visa so that Haneef can remain detained despite being granted bail by a magistrate, erodes the rule of law and violates the [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Leonard Baynes of the St. John's University School of Law says the US Supreme Court's plurality rejection of race as a permissible factor in assigning students to public schools overlooks key moral considerations and is itself immoral… In the recent Louisville and Seattle desegregation decisions, a plurality of the U.S. Supreme Court [...]

The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office announced the expulsion of four Russian diplomats and the immediate suspension of visa facilitation negotiations with Russia Monday, blaming "Russia's failure to cooperate to find a solution" in the two countries' differences over Britain's extradition request for Andrei Lugovoy , wanted by the UK Crown Prosecution Service for his [...]

Mary E. Gibson, Pitt Law '08, files from Prishtina: Independence for Kosovo is nothing new — independence fervor did not begin in 1998 when conflicts escalated from Slobodan MiloÅ¡ević's ethnic cleansing of Albanians. Rather, it's been fermenting since before the Ottoman Empire's victory at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Kosovar-Albanians believed independence could have [...]

Former Ugandan health minister Jim Muhwezi went to trial Monday on charges of embezzlement and abuse of office. Muhwezi is alleged to have misused $4.3 million in grants donated to the government of Uganda by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and the Immunization (GAVI) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria to [...]

Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum admitted during a preliminary hearing Monday to killing Iraqis at Haditha in November 2005 but said he was acting pursuant to proper military protocol. Tatum is charged with unpremeditated murder, negligent homicide, and assault related to the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians . He asserts that his training directed him to [...]