JURIST Guest Columnist Douglas NeJaime of UCLA School of Law says that in the California marriage case the state's lawyers are attempting a difficult balancing act between an increasingly institutionalized pro-gay perspective held by those at the highest level of state government and the state’s own marriage restriction, itself a remnant of ideas that have [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Roland Amoussouga, Spokesperson and Senior Legal Adviser at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), says that the recent United Nations agreement with Rwanda over the detention in Rwanda of convicted ICTR prisoners is simply an agreement with the country's lawful government on any sentences that may be served in Rwanda, and [...]

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has signed into law a bill requiring key industries, like mining and banking, to be controlled by local owners, a government newspaper reported on Sunday. Government officials have tried to address concerns around the "Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Bill" by saying that it will not result in the immediate seizure of [...]

The Constitutional Court of Armenia Saturday rejected a challenge brought by an opposition candidate against the results of February's disputed presidential election, ruling that although polling discrepancies existed they did not affect the election's outcome. Tens of thousands of supporters of opposition candidate and former President Levon Ter-Petrosian staged protests after the results were announced, [...]

Pakistani lawyers protested Sunday, continuing their call for the reinstatement of former Supreme Court justices who were ousted after President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule in November 2007. Sunday's protest kicks off a week of protests marking the one-year anniversary of the date when Musharraf first suspended former Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry . [...]

Democratic members of both the US House and Senate have criticized President George Bush's Saturday veto of a bill that would have prohibited the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from using waterboarding and other interrogation techniques not explicitly authorized by the 2006 Army Field Manual. In an op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Senators Dianne Feinstien [...]

The military government of Myanmar on Saturday rejected a suggestion by UN special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari that the upcoming May referendum on a new constitution for the country be observed by independent monitors. The government also declined an offer of UN technical support during the vote. Gambari argued that the suggestions would legitimatize [...]

Chinese prosecutors plan to proceed to trial against human rights activist Hu Jia and the trial could begin within a month, a defense lawyer for Hu said Saturday. Hu was formally charged last month with inciting subversion of state power after he made public letters and recordings from Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng alleging that Gao [...]

China's Supreme People's Court overturned 15 percent of death sentences imposed by lower courts during 2007, the president of the Supreme Court's criminal law chamber said in a Saturday China News report . Huang Ermei also said that 2007 was the first year in which fewer prisoners were executed outright than those granted "death penalties [...]

Bolivia's National Electoral Court on Friday blocked a national referendum on the country's new draft constitution which was to take place on May 4. The new constitution, supported by Bolivian President Evo Morales , was passed by the Bolivian Constitutional Assembly on December 10, and gives the president more power over natural resources, collapses Bolivia's [...]