UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Friday praised the United Kingdom’s recent ratification of a treaty designed to extend legal safeguards to UN and humanitarian personnel participating in relief efforts. With the UK’s formal approval of the instrument last month, the minimum threshold of 22 signatories to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Safety of [...]

A right-wing blogger from New Jersey was convicted by a federal jury Friday for death threats made on his blog against federal judges who upheld a gun control law. Harold “Hal” Turner , a one-time FBI informant on white-supremacist groups, was convicted in Brooklyn of a single count of threatening to assault and murder federal [...]

US President Barack Obama Friday signed legislation designed to increase security along the US-Mexico border. The Act allocates an additional $600 million toward hiring 1,000 new Border Patrol agents and 200 special agents, building two new border control stations and buying more surveillance tools, including unmanned aircraft drones. The House of Representatives approved the bill [...]

The UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on Friday called for the repeal of all laws that discriminate against people affected by leprosy. The committee also drafted a recommended set of principles and guidelines to be used by countries in enacting legislation to protect leprosy patients and their family members from being discriminated against in [...]

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) on Wednesday announced that it had issued arrest warrants for former government officials in relation to the extrajudicial killing of several inmates following a 2007 prison riot. The CICIG issued 18 warrants , including those for former interior minister Carlos Vielmann, former police director Erwin Sperissen and [...]

A Sri Lanka court martial on Friday found former army chief Sarath Fonseka guilty of engaging in politics while on active duty. Sentenced to a dishonorable discharge, Fonseka was accused of trying to secure a place in a political party before he quit his military position. Fonseka will be stripped of his rank and medals [...]

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday confirmed that it had issued genocide charges against four former Bosnian Serb soldiers in connection with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre . The indictment alleges that the four men, Franc Kos , Stanko Kojic, Vlastimir Golijan and Zoran Goronja, were all members of the 10th Sabotage Detachment in [...]

The UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced on Thursday that it will charge four former officers of the UK Metropolitan Police in the alleged assault of terrorism suspect Babar Ahmad . Police Constables Nigel Cowley, John Donohue, Roderick James-Bowen and Mark Jones are accused of beating Ahmad during a 2003 arrest on suspicion of terrorism [...]

Zana Berisha and Kutjesa Nezaj, both 2010 graduates of the Pitt Law LL.M. program, are Kosovar citizens and write about the International Court of Justice’s recent decision on their country’s Declaration of Independence… When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rendered its decision on the legality of Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence on July 22, 2010, [...]

The Supreme Court of Nicaragua on Wednesday replaced seven justices who had been boycotting sessions. The judges, affiliated with the opposition Liberal Constitutionalist Party, had been boycotting the court for 10 months following the decision of President Daniel Ortega to extend the terms of two justices affiliated with his Sandinista party after the National Assembly [...]