Convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on Friday asked the Scottish High Court of the Judiciary to allow him to withdraw the second appeal of his 2001 conviction. Megrahi, recently diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, is seeking a transfer to his native Libya, a process that cannot be completed while [...]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday ordered the conditional release of former Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) rebel leader Jean Pierre Bemba , a decision which Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced he would appeal . The court found no evidence to suggest that Bemba would pose a danger, interfere with court proceedings, or fail [...]

Draft judgment, Supreme Court of Western Australia, August 14, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on the right to die.

The Supreme Court of Western Australia on Friday ruled that the right to refuse medical treatment includes the informed refusal of nutrition and hydration services, in a landmark decision. Christian Rossiter, a quadriplegic, had repeatedly asked his caregivers, Brightwater Care Group , to discontinue providing nutrition and water through a gastric feeding tube so that [...]

Afghanistan's amended Shi'ite personal status law , which entered into force July 27, still violates women's rights, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday. The Afghan government announced last month that the law had been revised to remove a provision requiring a wife to submit to sex with her husband after intense international criticism. HRW reports, [...]

Three UN human rights experts on Thursday called on Iran's Revolutionary Court to reject confessions obtained through torture of protesters of the country's disputed presidential election . A joint statement from Special Rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak, Vice-Chairperson of the Working Group on arbitrary detention El Hadji Malick Sow, and Special Rapporteur on the situation [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday urged the government of Burundi to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations during the country's 16-year armed conflict. HRW released the statement on the fifth anniversary of the Gatumba Massacre , in which more than 150 Congolese refugees were killed by members of the rebel National Liberation [...]

Christopher Boucek : "Early this week Human Rights Watch released a new report on internal security in Saudi Arabia. The report is very fair and makes many good points, especially about the numbers of individuals held in continued detention and regarding the judicial process for security suspects. Despite recent research, there remains much that we [...]

The Council of the European Union on Thursday announced sanctions against members of the Myanmar judiciary responsible for the verdict against opposition pro-democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi . The latest sanctions are in addition to a number of sanctions already in place against Myanmar. According to the press release from the 27 member states: [...]

Former US president William Jefferson Clinton addressed a capacity crowd late Thursday night at a progressive convention held by Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since leaving office, Clinton has become known for his charitable and humanitarian work , and on Thursday he discussed the evolution of "communitarian solutions" to world problems, devoting a large portion [...]