JURIST Special Guest Columnist Sharon Bradford Franklin, senior counsel at the Constitution Project, amicus in the US Supreme Court in support of habeas petitioners Mohammed Munaf and Shawqi Omar in Munaf v. Geren and Geren v. Omar, says that American citizens should be able to challenge their detentions in federal court whenever they are held [...]

Zimbabwean opposition group Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Sunday accused President Robert Mugabe of plotting to commit election fraud by printing millions of surplus ballot papers in advance of the March 29 presidential vote. MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission leaked information showing that at Mugabe's request, 9 million [...]

An estimated 6,000 protesters rallied on the island of Okinawa, Japan, Sunday calling for tighter controls on US military personnel in Japan in the aftermath of the alleged rape of a local 14-year-old girl by a US Marine in February. The rally's executive committee authored a resolution calling for a drastic revision of the US-Japan [...]

Malaysia will institute reforms to ensure an independent judiciary in an effort to restore trust in the nation's courts, newly appointed Malaysian Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim told the New Straits Times Sunday. Zaid said he will work to institutionalize the appointment and promotion of judges through an independent body, and to ensure greater transparency in [...]

Alan Gura : "As advocates, our role is to respond to the actual questions posed by the Justices, in a direct and honest manner, which would hopefully make the Court more comfortable with our respective positions. That's it. Members of the Court questioned Petitioners' version of history, and the Solicitor General's unsatisfying standard of review [...]

The Taiwanese Central Election Commission said Saturday that two national referendums on whether to proceed with a proposed bid for United Nations (UN) membership have failed. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) , headed by outgoing Taiwanese President Chen Shui-Bian, put forth one of the referendums which sought reinstatement to the UN under Taiwan's own name [...]

Hundreds of Bangladesh veterans who took part in the 1971 War of Independence issued a call Friday for war crimes trials against those Bangladeshis who assisted Pakistani forces in the war. Veterans and commanders from the war gathered in the city of Dhaka, under the banner of the Bangladesh Liberation War Sector Commanders' Forum , [...]

The Office of Serbia's War Crimes Prosecutor said Friday that it is investigating "informal statements" it has received from investigators at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that dozens of imprisoned Serbs were killed by Albanian rebels in 1999 so that their organs could be used in an international trafficking operation. Former [...]

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Friday that he was willing to compromise with Congress on legislation amending the Foreign Intelligence Security Act but that the legislature would have to provide a "workable bill". Mukasey said that the bill passed by the US House of Representatives last week, which did not provide retroactive immunity to [...]

Ousted Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has characterized Pakistan's February parliamentary elections which resulted in the victory of opposition parties now joined in a coalition government as a popular verdict in favor of the country's constitution, abrogated in November when President Pervez Musharraf proclaimed emergency rule in the country and deposed its superior court [...]