The debate over capital punishment in California has gained new momentum following the execution earlier this week of Crips gang co-founder and convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams . Both sides are wondering what impact Williams' execution will have on currently-scheduled executions and the future of the death penalty in California. California could execute at least [...]

A Tokyo High Court judge on Wednesday refused to overturn a lower court decision that denied compensation for unpaid wages for a group of South Koreans who were forced to work at a Japanese steel mill during WWII. Relatives of the forced laborers had asked that the Japanese government be ordered to pay 20 million [...]

The UN Security Council is considering a proposed resolution, offered by France at the request of Lebanon, that would widen the scope of the UN probe into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri to include other politically motivated killings that have occurred in Lebanon during the past year. The resolution, which would [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Tuesday convicted retired Rwandan army officer Lt. Col. Aloys Simba of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 25 years in prison . The charges against Simba stemmed from the 100-day massacre of over half a million in 1994. The Tribunal found that Simba supplied [...]

The US Army has given preliminary approval to a new set of classified interrogation techniques which are likely to cause a roadblock in negotiations over Sen. John McCain's proposed amendment on detainee treatment . The interrogation techniques are to be added to the new Army field manual as a 10-page addendum and this is the [...]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday accused the international community of failing to live up to its obligations to help bring Saddam Hussein to justice, saying the "effective boycott of Saddam's trial is only harming the Iraqi people". Although Rice did not name specific countries in her speech at the Heritage Foundation, she [...]

The US House of Representatives is expected to pass a White House-backed bill Wednesday that would reauthorize sections of the USA Patriot Act , although the legislation may still face a filibuster in the Senate. Certain provisions of the Patriot Act, the country's primary anti-terrorism law, are due to expire on December 31 and Republicans [...]

US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said Tuesday that more than 100 detainees had been abused in two Iraqi detention facilities, a figure considerably greater than the 21 or 26 people previously reported as abused. An investigation had been carried out following the discovery by US soldiers of 173 malnourished, beaten and possibly tortured detainees [...]

Leading Wednesday's international brief, the International Commission of Jurists has issued a report urging the Nepal government to revoke the recently approved media ordinance as contrary to the Nepalese Constitution and Nepal's international human rights obligations. The report questions the intent of the legislation, alleging that its true purpose is to suppress critical journalism rather [...]

The Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milsoevic, Decision in Relation to Severance, Extension of Time, and Rest, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, December 12, 2005 (released December 13, 2005) . Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.