The Supreme Court of Pakistan has been petitioned to force the country's government to bring an action in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against countries where cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been published. A Pakistani lawyer filed the petition Tuesday, arguing that the government had failed to meet its duty of referring the [...]

Hassan Bubacar Jallow , lead prosecutor for the UN-affiliated International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) asked Wednesday that the Tribunal transfer the case of former Rwanda official Michel Bagaragaza to Norway. Bagaragaza, who has pleaded not guilty to genocide charges and is being held in the Netherlands , supported the transfer request. He was director [...]

Indonesia on Wednesday defended death sentences handed down earlier this week against two Australians convicted for attempting to smuggle narcotics out of the country. An Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman said the sentences were in line with Indonesian law and that they should be respected by others. Australia had said it would seek clemency after Andrew [...]

Reversing a stance taken in previous years, Idaho state senators Wednesday voted to put on the November ballot a constitutional amendment that would establish one man and one woman marriages as the "only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized." The same measure was defeated in the Senate in 2004 and 2005 , [...]

Leading Wednesday's environmental law news, the Washington State Senate has approved a measure that would allow the state to provide more water from the Columbia River basin for agriculture while protecting fish by ensuring water levels during spawning runs. For years, farmers in eastern Washington have battled conservationists in western Washington over the amount of [...]

Lawyers for the US Department of Justice have told the US Supreme Court that inmates held at Guantanamo Bay cannot challenge their detention by relying on the US Constitution because "the Constitution does not guarantee aliens held abroad a right to habeas corpus." The argument, put forth in the government's reply brief supporting the DOJ's [...]

Several members of the US House of Representatives Wednesday sharply criticized US internet companies for complying with the Chinese government's censorship requests at a Human Rights subcommittee hearing . The hearing was called after Microsoft , Yahoo! , Cisco and Google admitted that they have been voluntarily withholding from internet users in China certain political [...]

US Sen. Russell Feingold has begun one more perhaps-quixotic filibuster against renewal of the USA Patriot Act , claiming that new versions of key provisions offer only modest protection for civil liberties . Feingold has so far received little support on his latest attempt to block renewal of the far-reaching US anti-terror law, and US [...]

Admitted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was unexpectedly allowed back into court Wednesday, despite a decision Tuesday by US District Judge Leonie Brinkema barring his presence Tuesday at ongoing jury selection proceedings for his sentencing trial . Moussaoui was barred from the courtroom after several disruptive outbursts over the course of jury selection proceedings, which [...]

Lawyers for Ahmed Omar Abu Ali , found guilty in November on charges of joining al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush, have asked a federal judge to delay his sentencing hearing, scheduled to begin Friday, so that they may investigate whether Abu Ali was a subject of warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security [...]