Judge Gladys Kessler of the US District Court for the District of Columbia has released an opinion to accompany last week's order granting the habeas corpus petition of Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed. In the heavily redacted opinion, released Monday, Kessler adopted a "substantially supported" standard for reviewing the habeas petitions [...]

US President Barack Obama has decided to seek a delay of the release of photographs depicting the allegedly abusive treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, reversing an earlier decision, White House officials said Wednesday. Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) agreed to release at least 44 photographs pursuant to a court order. The [...]

Letter on the government's intention to appeal a ruling requiring the release of interrogation photos, US Department of Justice, May 13, 2009 . Read the full text of the letter . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration, United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 13, 2009, . Read the full text of the materials. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held Monday that tort claims against a federally licensed gun maker and gun dealer stemming from a 1999 California shooting must be dismissed under a federal statute enacted in 2005. The court concluded that Congress intended the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) , [...]

Secular Turkish judges have warned that amendments to the Turkish constitution proposed by the country's ruling Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) that would include restructuring the Constitutional Court are going too far to promote an Islamic agenda. Head of the Council of State , the country's high administrative court, Mustafa Birden said Saturday that [...]

The New York State Assembly on Tuesday passed a bill that would allow same-sex marriages to be performed in the state. The legislation, which was introduced last month by New York Governor David Paterson , passed by a vote of 89-52. The assembly passed a similar measure in 2007, and five members who voted against [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law, former Chief Prosecutor for the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, says that the scope and vitality of today's international criminal law is a lasting testament to the life and work of the late Henry T. King, Jr., the youngest American prosecutor at the [...]

A former high-value US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) detainee died in a Libyan prison Tuesday. Ali Mohamed Abdelaziz al Fakhiri, also known as Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi , apparently committed suicide in his cell at al Saleem prison. The Bush administration cited al-Libi as the source of the flawed pre-Iraq war intelligence that Saddam Hussein provided [...]

The French National Assembly on Tuesday approved an amended version of a controversial internet piracy bill that would cut off internet access for those who repeatedly illegally download copyrighted material by a vote of 296 to 233. The bill, which was defeated last month when only a few lawmakers were present to vote after it [...]