Former Congolese Nationalist and Integrationist Front leader Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui on Monday appeared before the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague for the first time. The public hearing allowed judges to verify Ngudjolo Chui's identity and to read his arrest warrant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ngudjolo Chui's lawyer asked that [...]

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Rwanda Monday urged the international community and Interpol to ignore arrest warrants issued last week for 40 Rwandan military officers by Spanish National Court Judge Fernando Andreu, saying the warrants were based on "falsehoods" from "well-known detractors of Rwanda." Last Wednesday, Andreu indicted the officers on genocide [...]

Two opposition groups in Myanmar, the 88 Generation Students and the National League for Democracy (NLD) , on Monday urged citizens to reject a proposed constitutional referendum put forth by Myanmar's military government. In a statement to Reuters, the 88 Generation Students called the proposal a "sham" to legalize military rule. Last Saturday, the military [...]

Thomas Nash : "By the end of 2008 a new rule will be enshrined in an international legally binding treaty prohibiting the use of cluster munitions. This prohibition is the only way to prevent further humanitarian and developmental harm from cluster munitions and more and more international legal experts are coming around to this view, [...]

The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on Monday launched a new nationwide boycott of the courts to protest President Pervez Musharraf's November ouster of Pakistani Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and to demand his reinstatement and that of other ousted superior court judges. Chaudhry and the other judges were effectively dismissed on November 3 [...]

A multi-party coalition of Japanese parliamentarians said Monday that they have drafted a bill proposing a four-year moratorium on the death penalty and giving convicts already on death row life sentences without the possibility of parole. The bill is likely to face opposition from Japanese Minister of Justice Kunio Hatoyama, who is a supporter of [...]

Spanish police on Monday arrested 13 suspected members of Batasuna , the banned political arm of the armed Basque separatist group ETA , one month before Spain's March general elections. The same Spanish National Court judge who ordered Monday's arrests last week banned two Basque political parties from fielding candidates in the elections, ruling that [...]

The Pentagon is expected to announce Monday that military prosecutors will seek the death penalty against six Guantanamo detainees accused of involvement in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to government sources speaking on condition of anonymity. Under the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA) , the convening authority who oversees the military commissions process, former [...]

US Army sniper Sgt. Evan Vela was convicted Sunday of unpremeditated murder for the killing of an unarmed Iraqi civilian near Iskandariyah and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The military jury also found Vela guilty of making a false official statement and of conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline. He had been charged [...]

Bilateral arms control agreements negotiated by the US and Russia during the Cold War should be replaced by multilateral agreements, former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Sunday. Ivanov, who now serves as Russian first deputy prime minister, referred to bilateral agreements, including the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Salt 1) , as relics of the [...]