The African Union (AU) and the government of Senegal agreed on Tuesday to create a special court to try ex-Chadian dictator Hissene Habre for killing and torturing thousands of political opponents during his reign from 1982-1990. Habre has been living in Senegal since 1990, when he fled Chad after being deposed. The AU began talks [...]

Statistics Canada announced Tuesday that the police-reported crime rate for 2011 declined six percent from 2010, reaching the lowest level since 1972. Throughout the country 1,984,916 incidents of crimes were reported in 2011—110,000 fewer than in 2010. However, despite the fact that rates for most violent crimes fell in 2011, officials said that the country’s [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Valentina Azarov of the Al-Quds Bards College, Al-Quds University says that Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories violate international law, specifically in regards to the illegal construction of settlements. She also argues that third-party states should seek to enforce international norms in their legal relationships with Israel…

A senior Russian judge on Tuesday ordered a court to review the appeal of jailed former Russian oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky . It remains to be seen whether the order is on a legal technicality or if there will be real progress in the appeal . Once CEO of Yukos Oil and one of the [...]

The Australian government has discontinued proceedings against former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks over the profits from his memoir. Australia’s Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) decided to halt the proceedings against Hicks, 36, commenced in July 2011 that were aimed at appropriating all profits from the autobiography. The book, Guantanamo, My Journey , chronicles [...]

An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday rejected a request by the defense counsel in the terror trial against the country’s vice president Tariq al-Hashemi to call President Jalal Talabani to testify. The defense team, led by Muayad Obeid al-Ezzi, had requested the country’s president to testify in the case as a character witness and planned [...]

The Constitutional Court of Romania on Tuesday upheld a change to the country’s referendum law that will lengthen voting times by four extra hours. The court ruled that the voting hours extension is constitutional as passed by Parliament , in which the majority of seats is currently held by the Social Liberal Union (USL) party [...]

An 11-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Tuesday upheld part of a South Dakota abortion law that requires doctors to inform women seeking abortions that they face an increased risk of suicide as a result of the procedure. The full panel re-heard the case solely on the issue [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announced Tuesday that it is sending human rights officials to investigate the recent attack on a relocation camp for internally displaced persons in Nahibly, Ivory Coast . The attack took place last Friday when around 300 individuals attacked the camp resulting in seven people [...]

Head of the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) Augustine Mahiga on Monday praised Somali leaders for their progress in the selection of the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) who will be charged with adopting the country’s provisional constitution. Mahiga said that the selection committee for the NCA had announced 816 of the required 825 members [...]