The former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka on Monday criticized the government's treatment of detained opposition leader General Sarath Fonseka . Sarath Nanda Silva, who retired from the Sri Lankan Supreme Court last year, accused the government of using the military justice system to prevent Fonseka from participating in the upcoming [...]

The US military on Monday transferred Camp Taji , one of the two remaining detention facilities under US control, to Iraqi authorities. Located approximately 25 kilometers north of Baghdad, Taji currently houses about 2,900 detainees held on arrest warrants, detention orders, or as convicted prisoners. About 100 detainees will remain in US custody. During the [...]

The Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) on Sunday approved an amendment to the electoral law mandating equal representation for rural and urban citizens. The electoral reform was adopted at the close of the Third Session of the Eleventh National People's Congress and was hailed by the People's Daily, a publication of the Central Committee of [...]

Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court ruled Sunday that female judges can serve on the State Council (Maglis id-Dowla), an administrative court system with jurisdiction over cases involving the state. In its ruling, the court emphasized the equality of all citizens . Last month, the general assembly of the State Council voted to bar the appointment of [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Geoffrey S. Corn, Lt. Col. US Army (Ret.), a former Special Assistant to the Judge Advocate General for Law of War Matters and currently a professor at South Texas College of Law, says that no matter how much the military commission system for trying detainees is modified, it will never match the [...]

Zach Mueller, Pitt Law '12, recently attended oral arguments in the case of Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder at the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. He shares his thoughts on the experience… The red velvet curtain parted, and Chief Justice John Roberts emerged from the narrow opening behind the elevated bench, prepared to hear [...]

Italy’s highest administrative court, the State Council , announced Saturday that it would not restore a candidate list from the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi . The candidate list for the region of Lazio was submitted late and contained People of Freedom party candidates for regional elections scheduled to be held at the [...]

William J. Snape, III : "While it is encouraging that China and India now recognize their important role in reducing world greenhouse pollution, neither their current commitments nor the Copenhagen Accord are answers to the most serious environmental problem the world has ever faced. The best available science tells us that we must reduce atmospheric [...]

In a telephone conversation Saturday, US President Barack Obama and Russia President Dmitry Medvedev approved of progress towards the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty since 1991. Wrapping up talks on the treaty to replace the recently expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I Treaty) , Obama and Medvedev reviewed the negotiations, agreed to provide additional [...]

Spokesperson for Serbia's Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekaric Saturday announced the arrest of nine individuals suspected of committing war crimes during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war . The nine, members of the Serbian paramilitary group Sakali, are accused of the systematic murders of 41 ethnic Albanians in May 1999. In all, roughly 200 [...]