Thomas Nash : "By the end of 2008 a new rule will be enshrined in an international legally binding treaty prohibiting the use of cluster munitions. This prohibition is the only way to prevent further humanitarian and developmental harm from cluster munitions and more and more international legal experts are coming around to this view, [...]

The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on Monday launched a new nationwide boycott of the courts to protest President Pervez Musharraf's November ouster of Pakistani Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and to demand his reinstatement and that of other ousted superior court judges. Chaudhry and the other judges were effectively dismissed on November 3 [...]

A multi-party coalition of Japanese parliamentarians said Monday that they have drafted a bill proposing a four-year moratorium on the death penalty and giving convicts already on death row life sentences without the possibility of parole. The bill is likely to face opposition from Japanese Minister of Justice Kunio Hatoyama, who is a supporter of [...]

Spanish police on Monday arrested 13 suspected members of Batasuna , the banned political arm of the armed Basque separatist group ETA , one month before Spain's March general elections. The same Spanish National Court judge who ordered Monday's arrests last week banned two Basque political parties from fielding candidates in the elections, ruling that [...]

The Pentagon is expected to announce Monday that military prosecutors will seek the death penalty against six Guantanamo detainees accused of involvement in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to government sources speaking on condition of anonymity. Under the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA) , the convening authority who oversees the military commissions process, former [...]

US Army sniper Sgt. Evan Vela was convicted Sunday of unpremeditated murder for the killing of an unarmed Iraqi civilian near Iskandariyah and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The military jury also found Vela guilty of making a false official statement and of conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline. He had been charged [...]

Bilateral arms control agreements negotiated by the US and Russia during the Cold War should be replaced by multilateral agreements, former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Sunday. Ivanov, who now serves as Russian first deputy prime minister, referred to bilateral agreements, including the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Salt 1) , as relics of the [...]

Former Cambodian Foreign Minister Ieng Sary , accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Khmer Rouge communist regime of the 1970s, has returned to ECCC custody after his hospitalization last week, an official for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) said Sunday. In addition to a [...]

 The Rwandan Chamber of Deputies has passed legislation that would make promoting "genocide ideology" a crime, punishable by life in prison for the worse offenders. The bill was passed unanimously by the country's lower house Friday, and now must be approved by the Rwandan Senate and signed by President Paul Kagame before becoming law. Some of the [...]

Former Chinese newspaper editor Yu Huafeng has been released early from prison after serving four years on corruption charges , Reporters without Borders said Saturday. Yu and his colleague Li Minying were both convicted in 2004 for embezzlement, bribery and corruption. Both men claimed the money in question was obtained legally and used for routine [...]