Iraqis prepared to go the polls Saturday to cast ballots in a critical referendum on a draft constitution the terms of which were only finalized earlier this week at the end of a high-pressure, high-stakes negotiating process urged on by the United States, too late to be reflected in millions of print copies distributed around [...]

Protection Gap: Strenghthening Canada's Compliance With Its International Human Rights Obligations, Amnesty International Canada's Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, October 14, 2005 . Read the full text of the report.Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. ALSO ON JURIST  Topic: Canada

A lawyer for detainees at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay currently on hunger strike argued Friday before US District Judge Gladys Kessler that prisoner attorneys needed more frequent access to their clients. Julia Tarver, representing four Saudis detainees, said that the present rule allowing monthly visits was too limiting. She also asked the [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said Friday that it would not reconsider its decision to end a two-year ban on Canadian cattle imports. Earlier this year a group of US cattle ranchers, R-CALF , challenged a USDA regulation that lifted an import ban put in place after Canada discovered its first [...]

The chief counsel for Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has said that the US Attorney for the District of Columbia is now investigating conservative radio commentator Armstrong Williams . Williams was hired by the US Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind Act without disclosing his connection to the administration. Lautenberg has been [...]

US ambassador to the UN John Bolton predicted on Friday that current efforts to dramatically expand the number of seats on the UN Security Council will fail. The 15-member council currently has five permanent members with veto power and ten non-permanent members. The US has stated that it will support limited expansion of the body, [...]

Revisions to the "final" (Sept. 18) version of the Iraqi draft constitution, as agreed by Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni negotiators on October 11, 2005. Articles translated by the Associated Press: NEW: Article 1: The Republic of Iraq is a single, independent federal state with full sovereignty. Its system of government is republican, representative (parliamentary) and [...]

Palestinian Chief Justice Zuhair al-Sourani resigned Thursday in protest of legislation that gives government ministers the power to appoint judges. In a letter to President Mahmoud Abbas , al-Sourani wrote that he could not continue in his post unless the law, which al-Sourani says "has torn the independence of the judicial system to pieces," is [...]

Canada must make "significant improvements" in its efforts to meet international human rights obligations, according to a new Amnesty International Canada report critical of the Canadian government for reserving the right to deport people to countries where they may be tortured. The report will be presented to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva next [...]

Josip Jovic will surrender to the UN tribunal in The Hague Friday to face contempt charges in connection with publishing the name and testimony of a protected witness in 2000. Jovic and colleague Marijan Krizic were each charged with one count of contempt under International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia rules for revealing the [...]