After last week's bombings in London, UK foreign minister Jack Straw has joined with European Union justice commissioner Franco Frattini in calling for new EU rules to allow government access to telecommunications data . "I believe that provided there are proper safeguards that no one's civil liberties are threatened by retention and access to data, [...]

The European Court of Justice Tuesday ruled in favor of the controversial EU Food Supplements Directive , scheduled to come into effect August 1. The directive, approved by EU governments in 2002, uses a "positive list" system under which substances allowed in health supplements are limited to those included on an approved list. Since health [...]

Issam Ghazzawi, a lawyer with Saddam Hussein's defense team, currently in some disarray after the resignation of its Jordanian leader last week, said in an interview in Tuesday's edition of the Vienna newspaper Die Presse that Iran, not Iraq, is responsible for the 1988 gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds. The gas attack is [...]

US House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI) introduced a House bill Monday to make existing provisions of the Patriot Act permanent, but stopped short of adding new provisions recommended by the Senate Intelligence Committee and requested by the Bush administration. He had earlier objected to granting federal law enforcement the authority to issue [...]

The European Court of Justice Tuesday fined the French government 20 million euros ($24 million) for its failure to comply with EU fishing laws, and then, for the first time in the court's history , imposed an additional 57.7 million euros fine every six months until the government is in compliance. The court first found [...]

After a US Supreme Court ruling in March, the US Tax Court has announced important changes to its procedure, ending the 20-year practice of keeping secret reports prepared by judges at hearings. At issue in the Supreme Court ruling was the case of Burton Kanter , where the "secret report" differed sharply from the final [...]

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill passed final reading in the UK House of Commons Monday in a 301-229 vote. The bill will now go to the House of Lords , where it faced strong opposition when first introduced in 2002. If passed, the law will criminalize written or public verbal comments "that are threatening, [...]

Royal Dutch/Shell Group announced Tuesday that it has settled a civil suit brought by employees in response to the company's overstatement of reserves for $90 million. The plaintiff employees were part of a retirement savings plan and filed suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 . Shell had previously settled civil investigations [...]

Draft resolution proposal to expand the UN Security Council, United Nations General Assembly, July 11, 2005 . Read the full text of the draft resolution here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

US District Judge T.S. Ellis Monday denied a motion by US-based security firm Custer Battles to invoke the False Claims Act to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two former employees alleging that the Rhode Island security firm defrauded the US government of millions under its contract to guard Baghdad Airport . Ellis did, however, eliminate [...]