The European Union (EU) is voicing reservations about human rights in Belarus in the wake of a growing number of reports of abuses there. At the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Austrian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Hans Winkler commented that next month's elections in the country are unlikely to bring "sweeping change" and [...]

Microsoft responded Wednesday to European Commission (EC) complaints of non-compliance with orders from a 2004 EC antitrust ruling to produce technical data by insisting in a 75-page report that the EC had ignored significant evidence relating to the release of source code material. The software giant accuses the EC of contributing to the problems by [...]

Report on the Effective Respect for Human Rights in France, Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe, February 15, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: Draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in force of sections 1 to 9) Order 2006, UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights, February 13, 2006 . Read the text of the report . Reported in JURISTs Paper Chase here.

The US Department of Justice has opened an internal investigation into its role in the domestic surveillance program approved by President Bush, Rep. Maurice Hinchey said Wednesday. Counsel for DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed that an investigation had been started in response to requests by four House members into the DOJ's role in approving [...]

Congressional Democrats on Wednesday introduced legislation that would roll back some of the limited liability provisions for vaccine and drug manufacturers in times of public health or bioterror emergency. A group of 21 US Senate and House Democrats led by Sen. Eedward Kennedy (D-MA) said in a letter describing the proposed Responsible Public Readiness and [...]

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 , [...]