UN legal experts met with Indonesian leaders Thursday to launch an inquiry into the violence and pro-Indonesian militia killings that followed the 1999 independence vote in East Timor and eventually led to the territory's emergence in 2002 as a fully independent state under the name of Timor-Leste , after a brief period of direct UN [...]

Testimony of the Honorable Joan H. Lefkow, Senate Judiciary Committee, May 18, 2005 . Excerpt: I am the fourth judge since 1978 who has been the victim of assassination as a result of "the madness in the shadows of modern life" (I borrow that phrase from the note former President Clinton wrote to me); more [...]

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority report released Wednesday says that Bush administration UN ambassador nominee John Bolton planned to ask CIA Director George Tenet to help punish a government intelligence analyst who disagreed with him. The report by Democratic members of the committee claims that Bolton pushed for months to have the analyst reprimanded, [...]

The long-awaited debate over the fate of the judicial filibuster began Wednesday in the US Senate. Republican majority leader Senator Bill Frist opened the floor debate and accused the Democrats of using the obstructive tactic as an attempt to “kill, and defeat” President Bush’s federal judicial nominees. Republicans are opposed to the use of the [...]

Following up on a story previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, a jury in West Palm Beach Florida has ordered investment giant Morgan Stanley to pay $850 million in punitive damages to billionaire investor Ronald Perelman . On Monday, the jury ordered Morgan Stanley to pay Perelman $604 million in actual damages for misrepresenting a [...]

Leading Wednesday's international brief, Spain officially ratified the EU Constitution today after the Spanish Senate voted 225 – 6 to approve the document. Spain held a non-binding referendum in February that demostrated strong popular support for the proposed Europe-wide constitution. Spain's lower house of parliament, El Congreso de los Diputados approved the Constitution 28 April. [...]

The main opposition parties in Ivory Coast signed a deal Wednesday in Paris ahead of the general elections to be held later this year. The prospective alliance would see a distribution of power between the opposition groups if current President Laurent Gbagbo is defeated. The alliance initially started as a reaction to the civil war [...]

Kuwait will begin cracking down on illegal weapon possession after an amnesty period ends on Thursday. In February, Kuwait passed a law giving police broad powers to search for unlicensed weapons. The law allows the police to more easily obtain search warrants to look for weapons in private residences and allows women officers to search [...]

Speaking publicly for the first time since her husband and mother were murdered , US District Judge Joan Lefkow on Wednesday asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to condemn public attacks against judges by some commentators and politicians, claiming it fostered disrespect for the judiciary. A man whose civil case was dismissed by Lefkow claimed responsibility [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union has obtained records from the US Army describing mock executions being used against Iraqi detainees, which are forbidden. An army captain ordered a detainee to dig his own grave then ordered troops to pretend to shoot him. In a similar incident, a soldier fired a gun over a detainee's head. [...]