An Amsterdam trial court ruled Wednesday that it has jurisdiction to try right-wing politician Geert Wilders for statements against Islam. The court rejected Wilders's claim that he should be tried by the Supreme Court as a member of parliament, finding that Wilders's alleged crime was committed outside his capacity as an MP. The court also [...]

Shaista Shameem : "The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the rights of peoples to self-determination welcomes the decision announced by the US Vice President Joe Biden to appeal a ruling dismissing charges against the five Blackwater guards in connection [...]

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the majority of an injunction against an Oklahoma anti-illegal immigration law, but did permit the state to enact a provision whereby businesses would have to check their employment roster against a state list of eligible workers through a pilot program. The three-judge panel, sitting at the US Court [...]

A Chinese police official said Wednesday that three people have been arrested for their involvement in the 2008 melamine-tainted milk scandal . The general manager of Lekang Dairy Co., Zhang Wenxue, as well as vice general manager Zhu Shuming and milk powder dealer Ma Shuangling have been arrested and charged with manufacturing and selling food [...]

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday reversed a Pre-Trial Chamber decision that denied the application for an arrest warrant on genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir . The court emphasized that the reversal was procedural in nature, and did not address the substantive question of whether al-Bashir is responsible [...]

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim entered a plea of not guilty on Wednesday at the start of his sodomy trial. Anwar's defense lawyers are hoping to postpone the trial until the resolution of his appeals of the High Court's refusal to dismiss the sodomy charge and the Federal Court's decision not to grant him access [...]

Prosecutor v. al-Bashir, International Criminal Court, Appeals Chamber, February 3, 2010 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on Omar al-Bashir.

The Swiss Federal Council announced Wednesday that it would accept two Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay . The council decided to admit the detainees for humanitarian reasons, despite the Chinese citizenship of both Uighurs and recent warnings by the Chinese Embassy in Switzerland that Switzerland would jeopardize relations with China by accepting the detainees. After [...]

The US House Judiciary Committee has approved a bill to give the Supreme Court jurisdiction to review appeals of court-martial decisions. The proposed legislation, known as the Equal Justice for Our Military Act of 2009 , would modify the high court's jurisdiction so that service members could petition for review if the US Court of [...]

The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland announced Wednesday that $4.6 million seized from the bank accounts of former Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier must be returned to his family. The decision , made just hours before the January 12 Haitian earthquake , overturned the ruling of the Federal Criminal Court that the money should go to [...]