JURIST Guest Columnist Christopher Schroeder of Duke University Law School says that the claim that "executive privilege" concerns required the withdrawal of US Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has been overstated, and that senatorial requests for information on her White House service there could have been selectively accommodated without crossing any proverbial "red line" … [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor William G. Ross, a specialist in constitutional history and the appointment of U.S. Supreme Court justices teaching at Cumberland School of Law, Samford University, says that the US Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito will be hard for Democrats or conservative Republicans to defeat… Opponents of Samuel A. Alito's nomination to [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Greg Kehoe, US Department of Justice Regime Crimes Liaison to the Iraqi Special Tribunal in Baghdad from March 2004 until March 2005, says that while the current Ad Dujayl case against Saddam Hussein is not about the biggest crime committed by his regime, it exemplifies its conduct and is a crucial [...]

The trial of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali , an American citizen accused of plotting to kill President Bush, begins Monday in federal court in Virginia. Abu Ali has pleaded not guilty to a nine-count indictment on charges of conspiring to kill the president and providing resources and support to al Qaeda. Abu Ali was arrested [...]

Thousands of people gathered Sunday under the dome of the Capitol Rotunda to view the closed casket of civil rights activist Rosa Parks , who died of natural causes at the age of 92 last week . Parks is remembered most for her December 1, 1955 act of refusing to give up her seat to [...]

Wire services are reporting that President Bush will nominate Judge Samuel Alito of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals to fill the US Supreme Court seat left vacant by retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Alito would be Bush's second choice for the spot after his first nominee, Harriet Miers , withdrew her name from [...]

Two US soldiers have been charged with assault, conspiracy to maltreat, and dereliction of duty for allegedly punching two detainees in the chest, shoulders and stomach at a base detention site in southern Afghanistan in early July. The alleged assault did not require medical attention for either detainee. One of the detainees has since been [...]

The Australian Government and Prime Minister John Howard committed Sunday to passing new anti-terror laws before Christmas after weekend meetings to discuss a revised draft of a proposed anti-terror bill. Howard gave premiers until Monday to respond to the revision after the initial Friday deadline passed, and hopes to introduce the final draft to the [...]

In a bid to facilitate the transition of Iraq detention operations to Iraqi security forces, the US military has opened a new prison near the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq. Named Fort Suse, the facility can hold more than 1,700 detainees; it received its first inmates from Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca on [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague is this week expected to make a final ruling on a bid by accused former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj to return to political life in Kosovo pending his scheduled trial in 2007 . The ICTY allowed Haradinaj to return to politics two weeks [...]