The Washington Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Washington state constitution does not provide a right for prison inmates to starve themselves to death. Convicted arsonist Charles R. McNabb sued the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) to stop his force-feeding . McNabb pursued his case under the Article I, Section 7 guarantee of [...]

Sudanese Guantanamo Bay detainee Ibrahim al-Qosi said at a pre-trial hearing Thursday that he plans to boycott his upcoming military commission trial, becoming the third Guantanamo Bay detainee to announce boycott plans. Al-Qosi declined the assistance of a lawyer, saying that he did not believe in "the justice or the lawfulness" of the tribunal and [...]

A former top Chinese Communist Party official was convicted Friday of corruption and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Chen Liangyu was found guilty of accepting bribes and abuse of power, making Chen the highest ranking official to be convicted in China's recent crackdown on corruption . He was fired in 2006 after being [...]

US Vice President Dick Cheney and other top White House officials approved controversial interrogation methods, including waterboarding , in secret meetings, AP reported Friday. An unnamed former senior intelligence official confirmed an earlier ABC News report that the officials asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to sign off on the lawfulness of the techniques before [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Ophélie Namiech, a Legacy Heritage Fellow working for UN Watch in Geneva, says that to restore the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council governments that care about human rights must commit themselves to do everything in their power to ensure that the current Universal Periodic Review process succeeds… When the [...]

Charles R. McNabb, v. Department of Corrections, et al., Supreme Court of the State of Washington, April 10, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Guards at Guantanamo Bay have confiscated several unapproved items, including news articles printed off the Internet and a "Lord of the Rings" movie script, from Canadian detainee Omar Khadr , officials said Thursday. Khadr's appointed US military lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler, said that he gave Khadr the unapproved materials to help establish a rapport [...]

Egyptian prosecutors Thursday charged the co-founder of pro-reform opposition movement Kifaya with inciting unrest and violence in association with a nationwide labor strike last Sunday. George Ishaq and 60 other members of the Kifaya movement were arrested in a Wednesday night police sweep. Kifaya leadership has said the arrests are retaliation for Sunday's strike, which [...]

The National Council of the Slovak Republic voted 103-5 Thursday to ratify the EU reform treaty , formally known as the Treaty of Lisbon . Previous attempts to vote on the treaty had ended in walkouts by opposition MPs in protest over a domestic media reform law endorsed by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, but [...]

The White House's interpretation of executive privilege to shield former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and current White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten from Congressional subpoenas represents the broadest construction of the doctrine since Watergate, lawyers for the US House Judiciary Committee told the US District Court for the District of Columbia in court [...]