The chief US military judge at Guantanamo Bay on Thursday denied defense motions filed in both the 9/11 military commission trial and the 2000 USS Cole bombing trial. Defense counsel for accused 9/11 conspirators, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , filed a motion requesting that the court find that the US constitution was “presumed to apply” [...]

A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern on Friday over the impeachment and removal of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake . In a statement, the official criticized the actions of the lawmakers against Bandaranayake, calling the situation a “gross interference in the independence of the judiciary and [...]

Myanmar’s campaign of shelling on the state of Kachin violates the laws of war , Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Friday, the same day the government announced a ceasefire. President Thein Sein ordered the ceasefire after the country’s parliament unanimously passed a motion on the matter. HRW is calling on the government of Myanmar to [...]

A court in Bahrain on Thursday released human rights activist Sayed Yousif Al-Muhafda on bail pending trial for charges of spreading false news to harm security, according to Amnesty International (AI) . Al-Muhafda, the acting deputy head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) , was arrested in November during an unauthorized protest. After [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Indiana on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a union challenging Indiana’s right-to-work law on the grounds that the challenge could not succeed in federal court. The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 filed the suit last February arguing that the right-to-work [...]

Iranian lawyer and prominent human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh was temporarily released from prison on Thursday, after spending over two years in prison, her husband said. Sotoudeh left prison in Tehran for three days and was greeted Thursday by her husband and two children. Sotoudeh is serving six years in prison for her September 2010 [...]

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and the country’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai reached an agreement on Thursday on a new constitution. Details of the agreement have not yet been made public . Tsvangirai previously stated that the passage of the constitution was a condition for the conduction of elections scheduled for later this year. According to [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Jennifer B. Wriggins of the University of Maine School of Law says that the legalization of same-sex marriage in Maine through a citizens’ initiative is a significant milestone and model for other states seeking to legalize same-sex marriage…

A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit against federal law enforcement officials by men who claim they were illegally detained after 9/11 . The suit is Turkmen v. Ashcroft . The court dismissed the suit against former Department of Justice officials John Ashcroft, [...]

Army Colonel Denise Lind, who is presiding over the prosecution of Bradley Manning , ruled on Wednesday that prosecutors must prove that Manning was aware that he was providing information to an enemy of the US when he leaked confidential documents to the website WikiLeaks . Manning has been charged with 22 counts under the [...]