A New Jersey appeals court on Friday upheld a July 2005 trial court decision to certify a nationwide class of plaintiffs suing the drug maker Merck for damages relating to its withdrawn drug Vioxx . The plaintiffs – consisting of health providers, unions, and insurers – accuse Merck of knowing about the increased heart risks [...]

In a speech in Los Angeles on Friday, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that the US Department of Justice, through its anti-gang initiative, will give out $15 million in grants to six areas to help fund their fight against gang violence. The eligible areas are Los Angeles, California; Tampa, Florida; Cleveland, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; [...]

Britain has circulated a draft resolution to fellow UN Security Council members that would permit the pending war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor to be moved from Sierra Leone to The Hague. UK diplomats say Taylor's continued presence in the region may pose security concerns and threaten instability following his arrest in [...]

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina ruled Friday that Bosnia's main ethnic groups dominating the country's two semi-autonomous regions must discontinue use of ethnic symbols, including anthems, flags, and coats of arms adopted after the 1992-95 Bosnian war, because they were discriminatory. Serbs in the Republic of Srpska and Muslims and Croats in the [...]

President Bush on Friday completed a two-day summit in Cancun with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper by once again calling on the US Congress to pass immigration reform legislation that would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States as temporary workers. Earlier this week the Senate Judiciary Committee [...]

Pascale Duparc Portier : "As expected, French President Jacques Chirac delivered a much-awaited televised public address on the First Employment Contract (contrat premiere embauche, CPE) last night, Friday, 31 March 2006. He formally confirmed the promulgation of the Statute on the equality of opportunities (loi sur l'égalité des chances) containing the controversial article on the [...]

Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, March, 2006 . Read the full text of the report. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced Friday that the Swedish government has accepted its invitation to conduct an audit of the Scheveningen detention unit outside of The Hague where Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in mid-March. The audit will cover all areas relating to the management and administration of [...]

Members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee sparred Friday at a hearing on a resolution put forward by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) to censure President Bush for his approval of the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program . Republican senators expressed dismay at the censure resolution, asserting that some Democrats simply want to score political [...]

Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) Chief Prosecutor Desmond de Silva told the Associated Press in an interview Friday that Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor is being closely guarded by UN peacekeepers from Mongolia and Ireland as he awaits a war crimes trial. The prison where Taylor is being held has taken extraordinary measures to prevent [...]