US President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh to be legal adviser to the Department of State (DOS) . Koh was touted by Obama as an authority on public and private international law, national security law, and human rights. He previously served as assistant secretary of state for human [...]

Suspected al Qaeda operative Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of providing material support to al Qaeda, and his trial date was set for May 26. At an arraignment hearing before the US District Court for the Central District of Illinois , Judge Michael Mihm also made several evidentiary rulings. Mihn [...]

The Vermont State Senate voted 26-4 Monday to approve same-sex marriage in the state. This was the second of three readings of the proposed bill , entitled “An Act to Protect Religious Freedom and Promote Equality in Civil Marriage." Senator Kevin Mullin (R) brought an alternative motion for an advisory referendum to take place in [...]

At least 2,390 people were executed throughout 25 countries in 2008, according to a report released Tuesday by Amnesty International (AI) , up from the reported 1,252 executions in 2007 . China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the US account for 93 percent of all executions performed in 2008. China alone had 1,718 executions, or [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York overturned Monday a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decision to limit the over-the-counter (OTC) availability of the Plan B emergency contraceptive pill to women over the age of 18. In 2006, the FDA approved the OTC sale of the Plan [...]

A Dutch court Monday convicted a former Rwandan Hutu for the 1994 killing of two Tutsi mothers and at least four of their children. Joseph Mpambara , who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the killings, was allegedly a member of the Interahamwe , an extremist Hutu militia that was responsible for the [...]

The Singapore Parliament amended the Films Act Monday to allow for the broadcast of certain types of previously banned films featuring politicians or political parties. The amendment will allow political events to be recorded live and will permit documentaries and biographies of political figures as long as they are factual and objective. Politicians running for [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in Yeager v. United States , in which the Court will consider whether a criminal defendant can face new prosecution for counts on which a jury did not reach a verdict but that are related to other counts of which the defendant has been acquitted. Petitioner F. [...]

Advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR) Monday criticized  the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) for allegedly violating its own code of ethics and general principles of human rights by impeding the treatment those needing medical care during Israel's recent Gaza offensive . In a new report the group accused the IDF of preventing the sick and wounded [...]

The White House will soon make publicly available three internal memos from the Bush administration detailing aggressive interrogation techniques used against alleged top al Qaeda operatives, Newsweek reported Saturday. These so-called "torture memos" reportedly legally justify a number of interrogation techniques that some say amount to torture. The White House has decided to release the [...]