Chile's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that judges investigating charges of murder, torture and kidnappings under former dictator Augusto Pinochet's rule should file charges within six months or close their investigations. 365 human rights cases stemming from Pinochet's regime have been working their way through Chile's court system for the past several years with judges reaching [...]

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Wednesday, Jan. 26. On Capitol Hill, the US Senate will open its daily session at 9:30 AM ET. The Senate is expected to confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state today. A live webcast is available via C-SPAN. The US [...]

In Tuesday's environmental law news, newly appointed US Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced at a news conference yesterday that his "top priority" will be working with Japan to resume trade in US beef. Trade was halted in December 2003 after a case of mad-cow disease (BSE) was found in a Washington State cattle. [...]

Trials in two high-profile corporate fraud cases are under way, with the trial of former HealthSouth Corp. CEO Richard Scrushy beginning Tuesday and jury selection in the retrial of former Tyco Inc. officials being completed. Scrushy faces 58 criminal charges in connection with $2.64 billion accounting scandal that came to light in 2003. He will [...]

Trials in two high-profile corporate fraud cases are under way, with the trial of former HealthSouth Corp. CEO Richard Scrushy beginning Tuesday and jury selection in the retrial of former Tyco Inc. officials being completed. Scrushy faces 58 criminal charges in connection with $2.64 billion accounting scandal that came to light in 2003. He will [...]

Jury selection in the trial of former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was completed Tuesday, and opening statements began this afternoon. Ebbers faces charges of fraud, conspiracy and filing false regulatory reports in the $11 billion fraud scandal that forced WorldCom, now MCI , into bankruptcy. Read the Ebbers indictment and superseding indictment . Ebbers, who [...]

High-profile New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch has broken from its practice of not directly endorsing or opposing Cabinet nomineees to issue a formal statement opposing the nomination of White House counsel Alberto Gonzales for the post of US Attorney General. HRW said in a press release Monday that it had serious reservations about [...]

Leading Tuesday's corporations and securities law news, SEC Chairman William Donaldson stated in a speech today that the agency is considering changes to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to ease burden on foreign companies. Companies in both Europe and the US have complained of the costs to meet the act's requirements. European companies also contend that some [...]

The first parliamentary elections in Afghanistan under the newly established government of Hamid Karzai may be forced to be delayed due to slow progress on a census of the population. Already delayed once from this fall, the elections are scheduled to be held May 20. However, a deadline to present a finished national census to [...]

The Taiwanese government has urged the US to intensify its opposition to China's proposed anti-secession law , which is aimed at Taiwan. Joseph Wu, Taiwan's top official for China-Taiwan affairs, admitted late on Monday that there may be no way to stop Beijing from enacting the law, which Taiwan and US officials believe will create [...]