Iraqi human rights officials are investigating reports that US troops in Iraq used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon during a 2004 military assault on the insurgent-controlled city of Fallujah. According to Acting Human Rights Minister Narmin Uthman, a team of investigators has gone to Fallujah to examine the possible effects of the substance on [...]

Judge Patrick Robinson, who is presiding over the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia , adjourned the proceedings Wednesday after Milosevic said he was too ill to call his next witness. Robinson stopped the hearings and called for Milosevic to be examined at the tribunal; it was later [...]

Peru's Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a prosecutor's request to extradite former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori from Chile so that he can face corruption and human rights charges in Peru. Supreme Court Justice Jose Luis Lecaros denied the request because the anti-corruption prosecutor sought to extradite Fujimori on the crime of abandoning his position as [...]

UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke ordered Wednesday that British citizen Babar Ahmad be extradited to the United States where he will face charges of terrorism, conspiring to kill Americans and running a website used to fund terrorists and recruit al Qaeda members. Ahmad was charged in August 2004 and subsequently arrested in Britain on a [...]

Former Bosnian Army commander Sefer Halilovic was acquitted Wednesday by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on war crimes charges . The ICTY ruled that court prosecutors did not prove that Halilovic, the most senior Bosnian Muslim commander to face trial at the tribunal, was in charge of troops that killed 62 Croat [...]

Massachusetts legislators Tuesday rejected a bill 100-53 which proposed the reinstatement of the death penalty. Massachusetts has not used capital punishment since 1947. The bill was proposed in April by Republican Governor Mitt Romney who is considering running for president in 2008. Romney has asserted that the bill contained "foolproof" provisions to prevent innocent people [...]

Leading Wednesday's international brief, Former Indonesian acting secretary-general of the General Elections Commission (KPU) Sussongko Sahardjo has been found guilty on charges of corruption and bribery and is facing sentencing that could result in nearly 13 years incarceration. Prosecutors from Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) asked the Anti-Corruption Court to sentence Sahardjo to the maximum [...]

The US Department of Justice said Tuesday that it is backing an attempt by congressional Republicans to split up the largest federal appeals court in the US, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit , which currently covers 54 million people and has 28 judgeships. In a letter addressed to House Judiciary Committee [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Brian Foley of Florida Coastal School of Law says that the Senate compromise on the Graham Amendment limiting judicial review for Guantanamo detainees leaves the way open for grave mistakes and injustices that may further damage America's reputation in the "war on terror"… After four years of silence, the Senate on Tuesday [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Dr. Laurent Pech, a native of Aix-en-Provence, France, and Jean Monnet Lecturer in European Union Law at the National University of Ireland, Galway, says that the recent rioting by French immigrant youths has complex roots and represents a political as much as a social failure… Sadly but unavoidably, the French Government earlier [...]