Commonwealth Brands, Inc., et al. v. United States of America, et al., United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky Bowling Green Division, January 5, 2010 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday that Iraq will file lawsuits in both US and Iraqi courts against Blackwater after a US judge dismissed charges last week against five guards indicted for their involvement in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in September 2007. Judge Richardo Urbina of the US District Court for the [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Monday upheld the conviction and life sentence of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui . Moussaoui's lawyers had requested that his guilty plea and be withdrawn and a new trial be granted, arguing that his plea was involuntary due to Fifth and Sixth Amendment violations. His lawyers [...]

The Serbian government on Monday filed a lawsuit against Croatia in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) , accusing the Croatian government of committing genocide during the 1991-1995 Balkan War . The suit is in response to a similar suit filed by Croatia against Serbia in 1999. The ICJ ruled last year that it has [...]

A federal judge on Monday refused to reconsider a 40-month prison sentence given to former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld in August. Birkenfeld admitted to helping a California real-estate developer hide $200 million to avoid paying taxes and has cooperated with the government in its investigation of employees of Swiss banks that the government says take [...]

A US rule ending a policy prohibiting people with HIV or AIDS from entering the country went into effect on Monday. The decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to remove HIV from its list of communicable diseases of public significance ended the 22-year-old ban. When the rule was published in November, [...]

The Malaysian Home Ministry on Monday appealed last week's ruling by the High Court that non-Muslims can use the word "Allah" as a translation for the word "God." The case was brought by the Herald, a weekly Catholic publication, challenging the Malaysian government's three-year ban on the practice. The newspaper argued that other options such [...]

Threats against judges, US attorneys, and assistant US attorneys have more than doubled over the last six years, according to a report released Monday by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) . The report, conducted by the Office of the Inspector General , found that judges, US attorneys, and assistant US attorneys received 1,278 threats [...]

Former vice-president of China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) Huang Songyou will stand trial on corruption charges, according to Sunday media reports. Prosecutors have not yet completed their investigation against Huang, who is accused of accepting 4 million yuan in bribes, but they are expected to turn the case over to the court soon. Huang will [...]

Serbian police arrested alleged war criminal Darko Jankovic on Sunday. Jankovic is accused of killing at least 19 civilians in eastern Bosnia during the 1992-95 Bosnian civil war . A spokesperson for Serbia's Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor indicated that Jankovic is potentially associated with the killing of Muslim civilians near the eastern Bosnian [...]