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 [...]

A federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a motion to allow General Motors (GM) to borrow $33.3 billion in debtor in possession financing from the US and Canadian governments to finance a new company. Judge Robert Gerber quickly approved the motion , allowing the proceedings to continue without delay. The motion, which also argues to [...]

Impeached federal judge Samuel Kent on Thursday resigned from his seat on the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas effective at the end of June. Kent's resignation comes a day after US Senate began impeachment trial proceedings against him, alleging that he sexually harassed his secretary and case manager, obstructed a judicial [...]

Bahukutumbi Raman : "Even before the Mumbai terrorist attack of November, 2008, India had been repeatedly demanding the arrest and handing over to India by Pakistan of 20 terrorism suspects – Indian as well as Pakistani nationals – wanted for trial in India in terrorism-related cases. According to Indian investigators, they were living in Pakistan. [...]