The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on Thursday criticized Sri Lanka's plans to court-martial defeated opposition presidential candidate and former general Sarath Fonseka . The Sri Lankan Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) announced Monday that Fonseka was arrested "in connection with certain fraudulent acts and other military offences." According to AHRC: The case is [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Thursday convicted former Rwandan army officer Tharcisse Muvunyi of direct and public incitement to genocide and sentenced him to 15 years imprisonment. Muvunyi was the highest placed military officer in charge of security operations in the prefectures of Butare and Gikongoro and former commander of a Rwandan [...]

Former Uruguayan president Juan Maria Bordaberry was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for his role in the country's 1973 military coup. Bordaberry was elected president in 1971, and in 1973 he worked with the military to dissolve the General Assembly, resulting in 12 years of military dictatorship . After his arrest in 2006 [...]

The European Parliament voted 378-196 Thursday to nullify an interim agreement between European Union (EU) member states and the US that gave American counter-terrorism officials access to the financial information of European citizens. The agreement was intended to last nine months, while the EU and US reached a permanent agreement to share European banking information [...]

The National Assembly of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Republika Srpska, passed legislation Wednesday intended to ease the process of holding referendums. Initiatives passed using the method would be binding only in the Serbian region , but some believe that it may lead to a referendum on independence . Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik indicated [...]

Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Thursday offered an apology to Korea for Japan's 20th-century colonization of the Korean peninsula. At a meeting in Seoul with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan , Okada said that the Japanese government regrets its history of colonial rule over Korea and the alleged war crimes that resulted. Okada [...]

A Chinese appeals court on Thursday upheld the 11-year prison sentence for democracy activist Liu Xiaobo , despite calls for his release from US and European Union (EU) officials. Liu was tried in December on subversion charges in a trial that lasted only two hours and was closed to foreign diplomats. In his appeal, Liu's [...]

Iraq Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told the Associated Press Wednesday that the Iraqi government has ordered approximately 250 former Blackwater employees to leave Iraq by the end of the week. The Iraqi government was reacting to a US federal court's December decision to dismiss charges against five former Blackwater employees accused of killing 17 innocent [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Gail Davidson, Executive Director of Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, says that the Supreme Court of Canada was simply wrong in taking the extraordinary step of denying Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr the remedy ordered by the courts below — the only remedy available — based on the arbitrary power of the [...]

Representatives from the African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) met with members of the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority (TDRA) and the Darfur Compensation Commission Wednesday to discuss the compensation of Darfur conflict victims. UNAMID's mandate calls for the organization to work with state governments to ensure that victims are compensated. The DCC, which [...]