UK legislators Monday voted 336-176 against a proposed ban on the use of human-animal hybrid embryo stem cells in scientific and medical research. The decision was highly controversial, with many ban proponents arguing that it was necessary to prevent potential attempts at human genetic engineering. In a Sunday editorial in the Observer, UK Prime Minister [...]

Kevin Lanigan : "The U.S. military in Iraq is quickly moving toward its first court-martial of a civilian contractor since the Vietnam war. The case holds some promise of beginning to reign in a pervasive culture of contractor impunity, but nevertheless raises important constitutional and human rights issues. And the case begs a critical question [...]

New Zealand's Human Rights Commission announced Monday that the Human Rights Review Tribunal has found the nation's accident compensation system to be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act , a 1990 law guaranteeing freedom from discrimination. The decision came in response to a challenge injured worker John Howard made to the country's Injury [...]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a measure to establish an anti-corruption council to be headed by Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Naryshkin , Medvedev announced at a Monday press conference . Medvedev said that a comprehensive national anti-corruption program was necessary to tackle social and economic graft and also to eliminate a prevailing culture [...]

The US Supreme Court denied certiorari Monday in Demjanjuk v. Mukasey , ending the appeals process of a deportation order for accused former Nazi concentration camp guard and Ohio resident John Demjanjuk . Demjanjuk, twice stripped of his US citizenship, had argued that the immigration judge who ordered his deportation lacked the authority to do [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert personally received cash from US businessman Morris Talansky while serving as a minister of industry, trade and labor, a state prosecutor said Monday in a hearing at the Supreme Court of Israel. Last week, police raided Olmert's offices as part of the investigation into corruption allegations against Olmert. Talansky denied [...]

The Iranian government is engaged in systematic human rights abuses, an Iranian human rights group said in an annual report released Sunday. The Defenders of Human Rights Centre, a group founded and headed by 2003 Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi , condemned the government for continued harassment and intimidation of dissidents, students, reporters, labor activists [...]

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua told AFP Sunday that he would resign if the Supreme Court of Nigeria invalidated his victory in the disputed 2007 presidential election . In March, Nigerian opposition leader and presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari asked the Supreme Court to review a February decision by the country's election tribunal to uphold the results [...]

Israel's Chief Rabbinate , the body that authorizes and conducts marriages in the country, should allow marriages between people of different religious faiths, Israeli Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann said Sunday. The Chief Rabbinate currently requires all marriages to adhere to Orthodox Jewish law and traditionally does not allow members of different religious faiths to marry. [...]

The US Supreme Court handed down four decisions Monday, including United States v. Rodriquez , where the Court ruled that for purposes of increasing a sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) a conviction qualifies as a predicate serious drug offense even when the crime is made punishable by a 10-year prison term only [...]