Claire Kaplun : "The Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council is an innovative mechanism under which each of the United Nations 192 Member States is periodically (once every four years) reviewed. At this occasion, the fulfillment of the concerned country's obligations and commitments in the field of human rights is considered. All issues [...]

An international court to prosecute crimes against humanity committed by communist regimes should be created by the European Union (EU) , the participants of the Prague Crimes of the Communist Regime Conference said in a joint statement Friday. The participants in the conference, organized by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes , said [...]

The official Iranian press supervisory body on Monday banned reformist daily newspaper Etemaad and moderate weekly magazine Iran Dokht . Etemad is known as one of the few reformist newspapers that continued publishing after the June presidential election . Iran Dokht has ties to defeated opposition presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi . The publications' licenses were [...]

The Turkish government will submit a European Union (EU) reform package with proposed constitutional changes to Parliament by the end of March, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday, following a meeting of the EU Reform Watch Group. The Watch Group, overseen by Minister and Chief EU Negotiator Egemen Bag?s , was created to guide [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday ordered a lower court to reconsider the case of seven Chinese Muslim Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay . The court originally granted certiorari in Kiyemba v. Obama to determine whether it is within the power of the judicial branch to order the release of detainees into the US. The [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed habeas corpus petitions on behalf of four detainees held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The first petition , filed Friday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia , challenges the detention of Haji Abdul Wahid, a 61-year-old government employee, and his nephew Zia-ur-Rahman, [...]

A Zimbabwean law requiring all foreign-owned companies operating in the country to transfer a majority share to local owners went into effect Monday. The Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Act requires all companies worth more than USD $500,000 to submit information on the racial makeup of their shareholders and a plan for the transfer of a [...]

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday to defend himself against charges related to war crimes allegedly committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict. Karadzic began his opening statement by denying any plan to expel Muslims from Serbia, and by blaming Muslims and Western [...]

Former Mozambican Transportation Minister Antonio Munguambe was sentenced to twenty years in prison on Saturday for his involvement in the embezzlement of millions of dollars from a publicly owned company. The trial was the largest corruption proceeding brought in Mozambique since the country achieved independence from Portugal in 1975. Judge Dimas Marroa of Maputo City [...]

The corruption trial of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was adjourned for a month on Saturday, after the court rejected the defendant's request to suspend the trial. A court in Milan ruled that it could not wait for the Court of Cassation to issue its opinion in the related prosecution of David Mills , as [...]