A Brazilian federal judge in Para on Friday agreed to conduct the first trial against members of its former dictatorship for alleged crimes during the military’s rule from 1964-1985. The defendants are two retired army reserve members, Colonel Sebastiao de Moura and Major Licio Maciel, accused of kidnappings during suppression of the Araguaia guerilla movement [...]

The US Supreme Court on Friday added two new cases to its docket for next term. The first case, The Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles , involves the procedural issue of whether a class action can be removed to federal court when there is dispute over whether the amount in controversy is over $5 [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio issued a preliminary injunction on Friday that will prevent Ohio Secretary of State John Husted from limiting early election voting in the three days preceding the election to members of the Armed Forces. In deciding that polls must be kept open to [...]

The secretary general of a leading Ivory Coast opposition party was sentenced on Friday to six months of imprisonment. Laurent Akoun of the Ivorian Popular Front, the party of former president Laurent Gbagbo , was sentenced after being convicted of disturbing public order. He was taken into custody last Sunday following comments he made at [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Douglas Branson of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that the trend of hiring independent corporate investigators and monitors, as exemplified by the most recent investigation into The Pennsylvania State University, has become overly expensive and fails to bring about greater accountability…

A UN human rights expert on Thursday condemned Iraq for the executions of 21 people on Monday and five more people on Wednesday. UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Chistof Heyns urged the government of Iraq to halt all executions and ensure that all criminal defendants have fair trials. Heyns decried the [...]

The California State Assembly approved a bill on Thursday that allows some illegal immigrants who came to the US as children to obtain driver’s licenses. The bill, which the state Senate approved on Wednesday, directs California’s Department of Motor Vehicles to issue driver’s licenses to people who do not have a social security number but [...]

Officials from the International Criminal Court (ICC) were in Mali on Friday investigating whether two Islamic groups, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad and Ansar Dine, have committed war crimes in Mali. According to Malian officials the Islamic groups have been committing human rights violations , including executing Malian soldiers, committing rapes, massacring civilians and [...]

A Tokyo court on Friday dismissed a claim by Apple that Samsung Electronics violated Apple’s patents with its smartphones and tablets. The technology at issued involved synchronizing music and video data . The judge stated that Samsung’s technology did not fall within the scope of Apple’s patents. Apple had claimed USD $1.3 million in damages. [...]

Mexico’s Electoral Tribunal on Thursday upheld the results of the country’s recent presidential election, after finding that there was no evidence that the winning candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto violated election regulations. Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the left wing Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD) announced in July that he was challenging [...]