US President Barack Obama is considering issuing an executive order for the indefinite detention of some Guantanamo Bay detainees in order to facilitate the closure of the facility, two administration officials told the Associated Press Friday. According to the report, the move is being considered in response to Congress's reluctance to provide funding for the [...]

Marc Mauer : "Attorney General Eric Holder's call this week for Congress to finally eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine "this year" was the most high-profile indication of the Administration's support for fundamental change in this shameful 23-year-old policy, and an indication that a change in these policies may finally be [...]

The Canadian Supreme Court ruled 6-1 Friday that children under the age of 16 have the right to make decisions over their own medical treatment if they can demonstrate their decision-making ability, but upheld the constitutionality of statutory schemes that balance the best interests of the child with the right to individual autonomy. The case [...]

The Labor Tribunal of Papeete in French Polynesia on Friday considered for the first time a demand brought directly against the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) by or on behalf of eight former South Pacific test site workers. Of the eight cases, the court dismissed three nuclear compensation cases for lack of proof and procedural [...]

Robert Applebaum : "The US Supreme Court has recently granted certiorari to United Student Funds, Inc. v. Espinosa, agreeing to consider whether student loans may be discharged in bankruptcy under the limited circumstances wherein the creditor fails to object to a discharge plan which includes student debt. Before anyone gets too excited about this, no [...]

Former Croatian Serb wartime leader Milan Martic was transferred to Estonia Friday to serve a 35-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war in Croatia. Martic was convicted and sentenced in 2007 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for crimes against Croats and others between [...]

Amnesty International (AI) on Friday called for a public trial for a Thai political activist accused of insulting the royal family. Judge Prommat Toosang on Wednesday ordered that the trial of Darunee Charnchoengsilpakul be closed for national security reasons. AI's Asia-Pacific director Sam Zarifi noted that although the closure of trials is legitimate under the [...]

Serbian prosecutors charged 17 former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Friday for war crimes committed during the war in Kosovo . The charges include rape, murder, mutilation, and torture resulting from the kidnapping of 159 Serb civilians and others in Gnjilane, Kosovo in 1999. The charges allege the death of 52 Serbs, Roma, [...]

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday approved a controversial bill that would allow legal privatization of publicly held Amazon land. The measure is aimed at stabilizing ownership of nearly 260,000 square miles of Amazon land, the contested ownership of which has sparked violence in the region. Da Silva vetoed sections of the [...]

The US Senate Armed Services Committee announced Friday the approval an appropriations bill that would alter the rules of evidence used in military commission trials. The version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 , which cleared the committee unanimously, would add language to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 reforming the [...]