Private security contractors operating in Iraq will no longer receive immunity from prosecution under a US-Iraqi agreement now in negotiation, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP Tuesday. Contractors have worked largely above the law due to legal loopholes because the US government exempted its employees and contractors from Iraqi law when Iraq was still under [...]

ICE Policies Related to Detainee Deaths and the Oversight of Immigration Detention Facilities, US Department of Homeland Security – Office of the Inspector General, June 11, 2008 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Cambodian lawyer representing former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan before the Extraordinary Chambers of the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) resigned Tuesday, citing health problems. Some have speculated that Say Bory's resignation is related to controversial tactics employed by French co-counsel Jacques Verges . In February, Verges said that Samphan was ending his [...]

A divison of the New York State Supreme Court dismissed remaining charges against former New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) CEO Richard Grasso on Tuesday. Former NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had brought six charges against Grasso over his controversial $187.5 million compensation package from NYSE. Four of the charges were dismissed in May 2007. The two [...]

A proposed Ethiopian law regulating non-governmental organizations, which it terms Civil Society Organizations (CSO), would severely undermine human rights efforts in the country, according to two separate reports issued Tuesday by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) . The groups said that Ethiopia's Charities and Societies Proclamation would bar foreign CSOs from engaging in [...]

The Supreme Court of Rhode Island Tuesday overturned a 2006 jury verdict holding paint manufacturers liable for contamination caused by lead-based paint. The court rejected state arguments that the paint companies had created a public nuisance, finding that they had no control over how the paint was used: But however grave the problem of lead [...]

The Shanghai People's Higher Court will broadcast its hearings online, a Shanghai judge announced Tuesday. China began televising live court cases in 1998, and the internet broadcasts are the newest element of its effort to increase judicial transparency. Speaking at a conference last week, Supreme People's Court (SPC) Chief Justice Wang Shengjun recommended : We [...]

A report from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has found that while US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not responsible for the 2006 deaths of two detainees, ICE officials do not always adhere to proper medical protocols. The medical standards chapter of the ICE Detention Operations Manual [...]

Millions of Swedish citizens have filed electronic petitions against the country's newly approved electronic wiretapping law , according to news reports Wednesday. The law was narrowly approved earlier this month and gives the country's National Defence Radio Establishment broad authority to monitor international telephone and electronic communications passing through the country. Upon passage, opponents warned [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Kevin Govern of Ave Maria School of Law, Ann Arbor, MI, says that a viable Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and Strategic Framework Agreement between the US and Iraq governing future US troop presence in the country requires a variety of institutional, legal and political obstacles to be overcome before the UN [...]