Indonesia and East Timor's presidents agreed Wednesday to establish a commission to investigate human rights abuses that led to the deaths of more than 1,000 East Timorese in 1999. The Truth and Friendship Commission will be made up of five delegates from each country, and is expected begin its work in August. The Commission will [...]

Florida Tuesday opened its case against Alliance Capital Management , the company charged with investing the state's employee pension fund in plunging Enron stock. The Florida State Board of Administration alleges gross negligence, breach of contract and three other state charges stemming from the fund's $313 million dollar loss caused by continued investment in the [...]

In a warning that could portend further legal trouble, Japan's Fair Trade Commission said Tuesday that computer chip manufacturer Intel should cease practices that violate Japan's Anti-Monopoly Act by pressuring Japanese companies to buy its chips. The commission based its ruling on deals Intel offered to Japanese computer makers, providing discounts if they purchased exclusively [...]

In a Supreme Court report to the National People's Congress, China's Chief Justice Xiao Yang said the Supreme People's Court would "further perfect second-instance judgments for criminal cases and death penalty review procedures." The government has suggested that the Supreme Court establish a special tribunal to review death penalty decisions. Currently, the lower courts administer [...]

The vast majority of Tunisia's 1400 lawyers went on a one-day strike Wednesday to protest alleged police brutality last week when 200 police stormed a Tunis court to remove 50 lawyers gathered in opposition to an upcoming visit by Israli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the UN-sponsored World Information Summit . Sharon will be the [...]

A Israeli government-commissioned study of Jewish settlements on the West Bank submitted Tuesday and made public Wednesday has concluded that 105 outposts are illegal, including 54 built on land not belonging to the Israeli state, of which 15 built on established Palestinian property must be removed immediately. The report by former state prosecutor Talia Sasson [...]

Bosnia opened its own war crimes court in Sarajevo Wednesday in a move hailed by leaders of the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague who anticipate it will absorb some of that court's backlog as well as gradually devolve legal responsibility for prosecuting local war crimes to local authorities. ICTY prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, [...]

{JURIST] Taiwanese leaders have condemned the proposed Chinese "anti-secession" law outlined Tuesday at a meeting of the National People's Congress in Beijing. The law, the full draft of which has still not been made public, endorses "non-peaceful means" of reunification in the event that peaceful processes fail. Taiwan Vice President Annette Lu said that the [...]

FBI Director Robert Mueller suggested to the House Appropriations Committee in testimony Tuesday that terror suspects be legally prohibited from buying guns. Under current federal regulatory practice, highlighted yesterday in a new Government Accountability Office report , persons suspected of links to terror groups are not included among the categories of persons banned from buying [...]

UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke offered additional concessions on the British government's proposed Prevention of Terrorism Bill Wednesday after the legislation came back from the upper chamber House of Lords riddled with amendments designed to protect traditional civil liberties against potentially-arbitrary state action. Changes called for by the Lords included the issuance of all so-called [...]