US President Barack Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Monday, directing the agency to allow California and several other states to impose state vehicle emissions standards that are more stringent than the federal vehicle emissions standards. The memorandum reverses a policy set by the administration of former US President [...]

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday decided six cases. The Court ruled unanimously in Crawford v. Nashville and Davidson County that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects a government employee against being fired for cooperating with an internal sexual harassment probe against a superior. The issue came before the court in a [...]

Impeachment proceedings began Monday in the Illinois State Senate against Governor Rod Blagojevich , who is boycotting the proceedings. Blagojevich and his lawyers have refused to attend the proceedings, claiming that Senate procedures are biased and will deny Blagojevich his due process rights. Instead, Blagojevich chose to spend the first day of his trial interviewing [...]

Bolivian voters on Sunday approved a new constitution that places more power in the hands of the country's indigenous majority. The leftist constitution, which passed by a 59 percent majority, is said by President Evo Morales himself a member of the indigenous majority, to be the start of the new Bolivia . The constitution serves [...]

China – Measures Affecting the Protection and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, World Trade Organization, January 26, 2008 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, US Supreme Court, January 26, 2009 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in three cases. In McDaniel v. Brown , the Court will consider whether the evidence underlying the defendant’s conviction for sexual assault was clearly insufficient under the Court's 1979 decision in Jackson v. Virginia on federal habeas review. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [...]

Former Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga pleaded not guilty on Monday in the historic first trial of the International Criminal Court (ICC) . Lubanga, founder of the militant Union of Patriotic Congolese , is charged with enlisting child soldiers under 15 years old and using them to facilitate violence and human rights abuses in the [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Mary Ellen O'Connell of Notre Dame Law School says that while President Barack Obama's initial executive orders are encouraging signs of renewed American respect for international law, robust American recommitment to that seems unlikely in the next four years… On January 22, President Obama signed executive orders to close the Guantanamo Bay [...]

Venezuela will renew its request that the US extradite anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles , an official announced on Friday. Venezuela is hopeful that the new Obama administration will be more receptive to the request . Venezuela and Cuba contend that the US is legally obligated to extradite Posada because it is bound by international [...]