Ten days after the last ballots were cast, the Washington state governor's race remained too close to call Friday, and the state Democratic party said it was considering options including legal action. State officials still have thousands of provisional ballots to count and only about 3,600 votes separate leader Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Christine [...]

A UK judge Friday upheld the withdrawal of legal aid funding for Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt in his High Court case against relatives of victims in the Omagh bombing. The Legal Services Commission, the UK public legal services agency, withdrew aid to McKevitt after ruling that he lied on his application. McKevitt and four [...]

A human rights group has sued two former high-ranking Somali officials currently living in the US, alleging that the two took part in torture and killings in their home country during the 1980s. San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability filed suit Wednesday against Mohamed Ali Samatar, a former defense and prime minister in Somalia, [...]

Joost Pauwelyn, Duke Law School : "This is a true David against Goliath story. This dispute illustrates once more how deep WTO commitments penetrate the regulatory powers of its member countries. Under WTO rules, the U.S. agreed not to restrict the importation of certain 'recreational services,' which Antigua argued includes the free flow of cross-border [...]

Gay rights groups have adopted a cautious legal approach to challenging 11 state constitutional bans on gay marriage adopted by referendum in the Nov. 2 elections. Many of the groups fear that an all-out legal assault on the new laws could create a backlash generate public hostility. Instead, groups such as the ACLU's lesbian and [...]

The Dutch parliament (official site in Dutch) Friday asked the government to draft laws restricting the employment of imams at Dutch mosques only to those who have studied Islam in the country. A vote on the new law was delayed after Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said it may be considered discriminatory unless applied to [...]

The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that South Korea conducted illegal nuclear tests in the 1980s and 2000, in which it secretly extracted or enriched small amounts of plutonium and uranium. Although the tests did not produce enough uranium for a weapon and South Korea has repeatedly stressed it does not intend to build [...]

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Friday, November 12. New Mexico is expected to complete its count of provisional ballots today, as required by NM Stat. Ann. s. 1-13-13. The NM Secretary of State has more. The US House and Senate are in recess until Tuesday, [...]

In re: Candidacy of Independance Party Candidates, James Moore et al. v. Mary Kiffmeyer, Secretary of State for Minnesota, Supreme Court of Minnesota, Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz, November 10, 2004 . Excerpt: In the absence of any suggested rational purpose for the law, we have no difficulty concluding that by denying Independence Party candidates access [...]

Stanley Boim v. Quranic Literacy Institute, et. al., United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys, November 10, 2004 . Read the full text of the opinion here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.