Two Oil-for-Food investigators resign in protest over "lax" report News
Two Oil-for-Food investigators resign in protest over "lax" report

[JURIST] Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan, two investigators from a special panel appointed by the UN to investigate the United Nations Oil-For-Food program [official website], resigned Wednesday in protest over a March report [PDF] that they said was too lax on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Parton and Duncan accused the Independent Inquiry Committee [offical website] headed by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker improperly down-played criticisms of Annan and allegations of impropriety against his son Kojo. Mark Pieth, a Committee spokesman, said the parting was amicable. AP has more. JURIST's Paper Chase has background on the Oil-For-Food program here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.