The European Court of Justice Tuesday ruled against Promusicae , a Spanish music industry coalition, finding that telecommunication companies have no duty to disclose the names and addresses of people suspected of engaging in illegal file sharing. A lower Spanish court had asked the European Court of Justice to issue an opinion on whether EU [...]

US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) head Scott J. Bloch has accused the Department of Justice (DOJ) of impeding an investigation into the "politicization" of the DOJ under former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the 2006 US Attorney firings , the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. The Office of Special Counsel is the independent [...]

Moroccan authorities have arrested Abdelilah Hriz, an alleged participant in the 2004 Madrid train bombings , a Spanish judicial source said Monday. Hriz, whose DNA and fingerprints linked him to a house where explosives were prepared and an apartment where several suspects killed themselves after being pursued by police, will be tried in Morocco. According [...]

The Syrian government has detained former parliamentarian and dissident Riyad Sayf , the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria (NOHR) said Tuesday. Sayf is a prominent member of the "Damascus Declaration" group, which in 2005 issued a declaration urging Syria to embark on democratic transition and improve relations with Lebanon. In December, the Syrian [...]

Ten activists who led anti-government protests against fuel prices in Myanmar last August and September have been charged under Myanmar's Printing and Publishing Act with the crime of making illegal statements. Myanmar's ruling military junta has detained the ten activists pursuant to its emergency powers since their arrests in September. According to Amnesty International, 700 [...]

Three Indonesian Islamic militants sentenced to death for their roles in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings have filed a second appeal with the Indonesian Supreme Court, a spokesperson for the Indonesian attorney general's office said Tuesday. The three militants – Mukhlas, Amrozi, and Imam Samudra – are not entitled under Indonesian law to a second [...]

Former Malaysian Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim told a Royal Commission inquiry panel Monday that a December 2001 video that appears to show prominent Malaysian lawyer VK Lingam brokering Halim's appointment to become chief justice is a fabrication. Former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who released the first part of the video in [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law says that in the name of the "war of terror," NATO forces in Afghanistan are committing genocide by systematically hunting down and destroying the Taliban, a puritanical Islamic group, contrary to the terms of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime [...]

US President George W. Bush signed an executive order Tuesday implementing promises on earmarks made in his final State of the Union address delivered Monday. Executive Order 13457 commands heads of federal agencies to take "all necessary steps" to ignore earmarks that are not explicitly written into law. The policy portion of the order reads: [...]

US President George W. Bush said in Monday evening's State of Union address that he would issue an executive order Tuesday directing the federal government to ignore any future earmarks included in legislation that are not explicitly voted on by Congress, and that if Congress does not reduce the level of earmarks by 50 percent [...]