The UK's 1.2 billion-pound e-Borders program initiated by Prime Minister Gordon Brown will likely be found illegal under European Union (EU) law, the British House of Commons Home Affairs Committee reported Friday. The program was intended to provide the UK Border Agency (UKBA) with a more effective and efficient security system by collecting and analyzing [...]

Suspected Mumbai terror attack gunman Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab withdrew his confession in an Indian court Friday, claiming he was tortured and framed by police. Kasab originally pleaded not guilty in May, but interrupted his trial in July to confess and change his plea to guilty . Presiding Judge Judge ML Tahilyani continued the trial [...]

US Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez said Thursday that the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) plans to increase its efforts to prosecute hate crimes. The DOJ brought 25 federal hate crime cases during the first year of the Obama administration, which is the highest annual number since 2001. The number had [...]

US House of Representatives minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) said Thursday that Congress could potentially block the Obama administration's plan to purchase the Thomson Correctional Center (TCC) in northwestern Illinois to house inmates from Guantanamo Bay . Boehner said that at least two pieces of legislation would have to be approved before the detainees could [...]

A Pakistani court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Interior Minister Rehman Malik on corruption charges, following Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling striking down an amnesty order . The Supreme Court ruled that the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) , which granted immunity to President Asif Ali Zardari and 8,000 other government officials from the ruling [...]

Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalev on Wednesday urged the European Union (EU) to hold Russia accountable for human rights violations, in a speech after receiving the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought . Kovalev, joined by Oleg Orlov and Lyudmila Alexeyeva, accepted the award on behalf of Russian human rights group Memorial . Addressing [...]

Proyecto de Ley Organica de salud sexual y reproductiva y de la interrupcion voluntaria del ebarazo (Project of Organic Law of sexual health and reproduction and of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy), Spanish Congress of Deputies, December 17, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on abortion.

Spain's lower house of parliament, the Congress of Deputies on Thursday approved a bill that would ease restrictions on abortions . The bill passed by a vote of 183-158 with two abstentions. Current Spanish abortion law dates from 1985, after the end of the Franco regime. Abortions are permitted only in the case of rape, [...]

The chief justice of the Russian Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a review of the 2003 arrest of Platon Lebedev , business partner of former Yukos oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky . The decision came after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in 2007 that Lebedev's arrest and pre-trial detention violated his right to [...]

Tom Parker : "The Obama administration's announcement that it intends to move "War on Terror" detainees not cleared for release to the Thomson Correctional Facility changes very little beyond enabling President Obama to honor the letter, if not the spirit, of his pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. What this decision in fact [...]