A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted two men on charges that they sought to smuggle three surface-to-air missiles into the US for use abroad. Chao Tung Wu and Yi Qing Chen were charged under a 2004 anti-terror law , marking the first time it was used, and face a mandatory minimum 25-year sentence if [...]

The US Department of Defense said Wednesday that it will not seek the death penalty in the cases of any of the five newly charged Guantanamo Bay detainees or the four previously charged, including David Hicks and Salim Ahmed Hamdan . The Pentagon had previously indicated that it would not seek the death penalty against [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Nora Demleitner, former law clerk to Judge Samuel Alito and currently professor of law at Hofstra University School of Law, says that Judge Alito's judicial philosophy is driven by adherence to text, record, and precedent rather than dedication to a particular ideology… Since having been nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, Republicans [...]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday reaffirmed that the US meets international standards in its treatment of terror suspects, despite rising debate over the issue. Rice told an American Bar Association international law gathering that the US has always respected international legal obligations. President Bush said earlier this week that the US has [...]

The European Commission on Wednesday granted Turkey the sought-after "functioning market economy" status in its bid to join the EU, but it warned the government that a stronger stance on torture and human rights was needed. Winning market status for its economy is a major step in Turkey's accession efforts . However, in its report [...]

In Wednesday's environmental law news, the US House of Representatives voted late Wednesday night to remove provisions from a budget bill that would have allowed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Twenty-five House Republicans had threatened to join Democrats to scuttle the budget bill if [...]

Decree announcing a state of emergency in France and the application of the 1955 emergency laws, President Jacques Chirac, November 9, 2005. Read the full text of the decree and the 1955 laws (as amended) in French. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Legislators on a US House and Senate conference committee for the USA Patriot Act and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 are closing on a deal that would limit certain law enforcement powers under the Act in the process of making many of its provisions permanent. Under the tentative deal, still officially under wraps, judges [...]

US lawmakers Wednesday expressed some discomfort with a proposal by the Bush administration to increase the response role of the US Department of Defense in disasters during a hearing of a House Armed Services Committee subcommittee. House members questioned whether such a plan would leave the military stretched too thin, and also noted that the [...]

Judith Miller , the New York Times reporter at the center of the CIA leak case , has left the newspaper after 28 years there, the Times announced Wednesday . Miller negotiated with the paper for several weeks about her departure after she was jailed for 85 days this summer for failing to reveal her [...]