A soldier from the Indiana National Guard will be court-martialed for the murder of an Iraqi police officer, the US Army said Friday. Corporal Dustin Berg is accused of killing Hussein Kamel Hadi Dawood Al-Dubeidi near Baghdad in December 2003 and then shooting himself. Berg, who received a Purple Heart for his injuries, initially claimed [...]

In response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union over prisoner abuse in Iraq, the US Army released 1200 pages of documents on Friday. The documents cover 13 investigations into prisoner abuse that resulted in no charges due to insufficient evidence. At the center of the controversy is a DVD [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego notes that with the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Roper v. Simmons, the United States has finally joined the community of nations that says the state-sanctioned execution of children is wrong. Today, the Court repudiated the misguided idea that the United [...]

HR 841, Continuity in Representation Act of 2005, passed by US House of Representatives, March 4, 2005 . Read the full text of the bill here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Joint Committee on Human Rights — Tenth Report, UK Parliament, March 5, 2005 . Excerpt: We therefore question whether the degree of prior judicial involvement provided for in the Government's amendments in relation to derogating control orders is compatible with the Convention requirement that deprivations of liberty must be lawful. We question whether an ex [...]

After a Thursday ruling thwarted an effort to keep court petitions private , documents filed by Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF) related to the case of 41-year-old Terri Schiavo were made public Friday. The DCF is seeking a further 60-day stay of the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube so it may investigate nearly [...]

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said Friday that their first legal battle against Internet file-sharers has been a success. BPI issued their statement after 23 people paid a cumulative sum of £50,000 in an out-of-court settlement. Of those, 17 were men and six women, ranging from 22 and 58 years old. Each signed High Court [...]

journalist Giuliana Sgrena to safety after she had been released from her Iraqi captors. The attack wounded Sgrena and killed an Italian secret service agent. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced that he immediately summoned the US ambassador to take responsibility for the accident. He later stated to Sky Italia television , "An Italian agent [...]

The Swiss Federal Prosecutor's office announced Friday that searches conducted in Switzerland on February 22 resulted in the arrests of three individuals accused of running Islamic websites that allowed Internet users to view images of hostage killings and access instructions for bomb-making and kidnapping. The websites also allegedly provided a means of communication between extremist [...]

Britain's Joint Committee on Human Rights warned Friday that the proposed Prevention of Terrorism Bill , even with an amendment allowing only judges to impose house arrest on terror suspects, does not comply with human rights laws. The committee, which is made up of MPs and peers, has said that the procedures outlined in the [...]