Top Senate Democrats have said that they never approved or were fully briefed on the National Security Agency's post-September 11th domestic surveillance program . President Bush has vigorously defended the program, which monitors international communications of people in the US with known links to al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, and in a press conference [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Michael Scharf, Director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, says White House support of the McCain Amendment signals to the world that the US will no longer condone the use of torture in the "global war on terror", but it is only [...]

Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), International Court of Justice, December 19, 2005 . Read the full text of the judgment . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Second report of the International Independent Investigation Commission established pursuant to Security Council resolutions 1595 (2005) and 1636 (2005), December 12, 2005 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Manfred Nowak, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture , has called for Germany to prosecute the Uzbek Minister of Internal Affairs, Zokirjon Almatov, for his handling of the May 2005 Andijan uprising . A group of survivors and the New York-based Human Rights Watch have filed a lawsuit in Germany under that country's universal jurisdiction [...]

Kizza Besigye , Uganda's jailed opposition leader, and 22 co-defendants pleaded not guilty Monday to treason charges for which they face the death penalty. Besigye has also been accused of rape and he pleaded not guilty to that charge as well. Also Monday, proceedings were suspended indefinitely by a military court which is considering a [...]

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Monday that he will continue with democratic reforms in Egypt and pledged to work with opposition to move "forward on the path of democracy." Mubarak's address to parliament follows several weeks of parliamentary elections, which were marred by violence and allegations of bribery, coercion, and forgery . Mubarak admitted the [...]

President Bush on Monday slammed the Senate's failure to renew the USA Patriot Act as "inexcusable," saying the legislation is a crucial part of the government's efforts to prevent future terror attacks. Several sections of the anti-terror law are set to expire at the end of the year; the US House last week passed legislation [...]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported Monday that the US murder rate rose 2.1 percent during the first six months of 2005, though rates for other significant offenses, such as rape and arson, are on the decline. In its Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report , the FBI said that the increase in murder rates was [...]

The International Court of Justice , ruled Monday that Uganda violated the sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Congo during a 1998-2003 war and was responsible for human rights abuses and the plundering of Congolese natural resources. The UN court ordered Uganda to pay reparations for the plunder of the Congo's gold, diamonds and timber; [...]