The UN has raised sufficient funds to cover the first-year costs of an international tribunal with the mandate of investigating and trying suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , UN Legal Counsel Nicolas Michel said Thursday. Michel said that the UN has so far received a total of $60.3 [...]

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Thursday he would personally ensure that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) does not bow to political pressure as it prosecutes government officials for corruption. In a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Mukasey said: Public corruption can inflict damage that is not only costly but also [...]

UK Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne admitted Thursday that British soldiers had violated the human rights of several Iraqi detainees in Basra in 2003, saying that the Ministry of Defence would specifically admit to substantive breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights at a hearing scheduled to take place Friday. Nine Iraqi [...]

Green Party of Michigan, et al. v. Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, March 26, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution Thursday urging Sudan to address human rights violations and to prosecute perpetrators of rights abuses. The resolution, introduced by Egypt, also acknowledged that Sudan had instituted some measures to protect human rights, a concession apparently included to avoid a contentious vote. Last week, the UN High Commissioner [...]

Proposals put forth by the European Commission to regulate passports and create a centralized fingerprint database fail to adequately address privacy concerns, the head of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said in an opinion letter released Wednesday. Peter Hustinx said the Commission's plans do not adequately address the inherent imperfections of biometric systems, especially [...]

A federal grand jury in San Juan, Puerto Rico charged Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila and 12 associates with 27 counts of conspiracy, false statements, wire fraud, federal program fraud and tax crimes related to campaign financing, and other crimes in an indictment unsealed Thursday. The charges stem from the alleged improper financing of [...]

Journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal , convicted in 1982 of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner after a traffic stop, may escape the death penalty after the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Thursday issued an opinion affirming a federal judge's allowance of a new sentencing hearing in the case. [...]

The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) made good on earlier promises to investigate high-ranking governmental officials on Wednesday by formally launching an investigation into former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo . An EFCC spokesperson advised the public to be patient with the pace of the investigation, which he said will take time to produce [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday urged the United Nations to scrutinize the Philippine government's response to accusations that the Philippines military has engaged in extrajudicial killings of left-wing activists since 2001. HRW's press release comes two weeks before the UN Human Rights Council is scheduled to hold the first meeting of the Universal Periodic [...]