JURIST Guest Columnist Anthony D'Amato of Northwestern University School of Law says that the Obama administration can break the sixty-year deadlock in negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians by supporting the establishment of a special moot court – a quasi-official, transparent, privately funded tribunal that would render a non-binding advisory opinion on the two [...]

The US will have a hard time convincing other countries to adopt emissions-cutting legislation so long as an American bill capping carbon emissions remains unpassed, US climate change chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing said in an interview with AP published Sunday. The Waxman-Markey Climate Bill passed the House of Representatives in June by a vote of [...]

US Army First Lt. Ehren Watada has won discharge from military service after a three year battle to avoid redeployment in Iraq, according to media reports Friday. Watada sought to leave the army in 2006 in objection to the war in Iraq, arguing that by participating in it, he would be committing war crimes for [...]

Edward Alden : "Under normal circumstances, China's decision to appeal a recent World Trade Organization ruling against Beijing's restrictions on the import of foreign films, books and music would scarcely have been noticed. In the 13-year history of the WTO's experiment with binding dispute settlement, about 70 percent of the panel decisions have been referred [...]

Ben Wizner : "The Department of Justice's new policy on state secrets may turn out to be a small step in the right direction. If it results in fewer – and more nuanced – invocations of the state secrets privilege in future litigation, the Department will deserve some credit. But the new policy will be [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Saturday announced that three more detainees have been released from the Guantanamo Bay prison. Two Uzbek detainees were transferred to Ireland and one Yemeni national was transferred to Yemen. According to the DOJ's release: As directed by the President's Jan. 22, 2009 Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task [...]

Police used unnecessary force to disperse demonstrations at the Pittsburgh Group of 20 (G-20) Summit , several civil liberties groups said Friday. Witold "Vic" Walczak, Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA) said that police deployed throughout the city in a manner that prevented lawful demonstrations , suppressed free speech and [...]

The Obama administration may not be able to meet the January deadline set early this year for the closure of Guantanamo Bay , senior administration officials said Friday. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials told AP, the Washington Post, CNN and other media outlets that the difficulty in finding host countries for detainees who [...]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Saturday denied that Iran had broken nuclear development regulations in respect to a newly-disclosed nuclear facility, insisting that the applicable disclosure rules only require notice six months before nuclear material is introduced into the facility for the first time . At a press conference Friday, US, British, French, and German leaders [...]

German President Horst Koehler on Friday signed the EU reform treaty, known as the Lisbon Treaty , completing the country's problematic ratification process. The signature was the final step for ratification, after the Bundesrat gave final approval earlier this week to a bill setting out the process for ratification. Although both houses of Germany's parliament [...]