A former militia commander testified Wednesday before the Special Court for Sierra Leone at the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor , describing scare tactics used by Taylor to intimidate the population and frighten his enemies. Joseph Marzah said that Taylor had ordered him to kill civilians and told him that the [...]

Summary of the Judgment of of the Appeals Chamber: The Prosecutor v Athanase Seromba, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, March 12, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Amnesty International Canada and British Columbia Civil Liberties Association v. Chief of the Defence Staff for the Canadian Forces, et al., Federal Court of Canada, March 12, 2008 . Read the full text of the judgment . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The resignation of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer Wednesday following disclosure of his involvement with a prostitution ring subject to a federal wiretap has interrupted and potentially compromised a series of law reform initiatives championed by the former state attorney general. Among the most prominent of those is a bill to legalize gay marriage in [...]

Several provincial Egyptian courts ruled Tuesday that members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood must be allowed to register as candidates in the upcoming local council elections in April, even as Egyptian police continued arrests of group members. Egyptian police arrested at least 10 Brotherhood members on Wednesday, adding to the 54 members arrested last Tuesday [...]

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said Tuesday that US officials have refused to grant him access to US prisons operating in Iraq when he travels to the country later in the year. Nowak told reporters in Geneva that US officials told him the facilities were outside his purview because of the ongoing military [...]

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra Wednesday pleaded not guilty to charges of abuse of power for personal gain, conflict of interest violations, and dereliction of duty for personal gain in corruption proceedings before the Supreme Court of Thailand. The charges stem from a 2003 land purchase by his wife Pojamarn from the government-directed Financial [...]

The US House of Representatives Tuesday voted 229-182 to pass a resolution creating an independent ethics panel to investigate allegations of malfeasance against House lawmakers. The Office of Congressional Ethics will consist of six non-House members of "exceptional public standing." This represents the first time that the House has delegated the authority to investigate alleged [...]

Telecommunications companies who have assisted the government in its warrantless surveillance program would not be provided retroactive immunity from prosecution under the latest version of proposed surveillance legislation being considered by the US House of Representatives. The companies, however, would be allowed to present classified evidence in their defense without granting access to plaintiffs. Democratic [...]

A member of the National Human Rights Commission of Indonesia said Tuesday that the commission has launched an investigation into human rights abuses committed during the regime of former Indonesian President Haji Mohammad Suharto , telling AP that four separate teams will work until mid-May to gather evidence into killings, kidnappings and other abuses allegedly [...]