Portuguese Minister of State and Foreign Affairs Luis Amado on Wednesday sent a letter to European Union (EU) foreign ministers urging EU members to take in any detainees released from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay . Amado said that Portugal would be willing to take in detainees, and that other EU member states [...]

The UN Security Council on Wednesday added the name of a Pakistani charity seen as a front for the group being blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks to its list of entities subject to asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo as a terrorist organization. At the urging of the Indian government , Jamaat-ud-Dawa was [...]

Executions in the US are at a 14-year low and the number of death sentences has dropped 60 percent since the 1990s, according to a report released Thursday by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) , a non-profit organization that opposes the death penalty. There were 37 executions in 2008 with no more expected this [...]

UN and Cambodian government officials said Wednesday in a statement issued after a series of high-level meetings that they needed to address ongoing problems facing the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in its efforts to try former Khmer Rouge officials suspected of crimes against humanity by "enhancing its human resources management, including anti-corruption [...]

Danny Kushlick : "The same week that saw the 75th anniversary of the repeal of alcohol prohibition also coincided with recent moves towards legally regulated production (as well as supply) of cannabis in the Netherlands, and a referendum in Switzerland approving legally regulated production and supply of heroin by a huge margin. The winning argument [...]

The Guantanamo military commission trial of Afghan detainee Mohammed Jawad that had been scheduled to start in early January was delayed indefinitely Wednesday by order of a military judge. US Army Col. Stephen Henley postponed the proceeding to give prosecutors more time to appeal a ruling denying admissibility of evidence Henley had previously found to [...]

Spanish National Court Judge Ismael Moreno Wednesday asked the Spanish Foreign Ministry for a certified copy of a 2002 internal government memorandum detailing a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) request to use Spanish resources in aiding CIA extraordinary rendition flights. Moreno said that after reviewing the memo he will subpoena the memo's purported author, Foreign [...]

Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Wednesday asked the office of Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo for additional materials supporting its request for arrest warrants for rebel leaders in Sudan’s Darfur region . Pre-Trial Chamber I has given Moreno-Ocampo's office until January 26 to produce supplemental information in its application for warrants for rebel leaders [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Malcolm D. Evans of the University of Bristol School of Law (UK) says European Court of Human Rights rulings responding to growing calls to prohibit the wearing of clothing which is of religious significance in public places have laid down a number of key principles that should be taken into account when [...]

The Angolan government should stop torture and unfair trials in the province of Cabinda , according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) statement issued Wednesday. HRW alleges that at least 15 civilians and six military personnel have been arbitrarily detained in Cabinda since September 2007. There has been only one trial, which resulted in a [...]