UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour on Sunday criticized Nepal for failing to hold military and government officials accountable for human rights abuses. Arbour spoke on the anniversary of the 2004 death of a 15-year-old-girl who died during an interrogation by the Nepalese Army, characterizing the government's failure to effectively prosecute military officers [...]

A tentative agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has been hindered by disagreements over the identity of the Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for Shalit, Israeli Army Radio reported Monday. Hamas is demanding the release of 350 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Israel [...]

A number of Canadian politicians are urging the Canadian parliament to pass new legislation aimed at permitting the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to conduct surveillance on Canadian citizens outside Canada in the wake of a controversial court ruling issued Friday which declined to assert jurisdiction over a dispute between CSIS and the Canadian Security [...]

Egyptian police on Sunday arrested 51 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood , most of whom were expected to run in upcoming provincial council elections scheduled for April 8 . Egypt's provincial councils administer local municipal government services. These municipal elections were originally scheduled for 2006, but the Egyptian legislature passed a law to delay [...]

The Serbian Interior Ministry on Monday filed treason charges against Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Thaci , President Fatmir Sejdiu , and Speaker of Parliament Jakup Krasniqi, for their role in organizing the Assembly of Kosovo's Sunday declaration of independence from Serbia . Thaci, former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army , was convicted in absentia [...]

A new foreign intelligence surveillance bill is needed to ensure that the US intelligence community has "the agility and the speed that we had before" to capture terrorist communications in the war on terror, US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said Sunday in an interview with Fox News Sunday. The temporary Protect America Act [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that opinions of the US Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel that are manifestly inconsistent with or violative of the laws of war provide no legal cover for any member of the executive branch seeking impunity for alleged war crimes and [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Timothy Waters of Indiana University School of Law Bloomington says that Kosovo's declaration of independence represents a problematic precedent in international law that may ironically bring us back to self-determination as the core historical and moral justification for secession from Serbia… Even though Kosovo's leaders have now declared independence, the present period [...]

Kosovo Declaration of Independence, Kosovo Assembly, February 17, 2008 . Read the full text of the declaration. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Human Rights Watch on Sunday called on Kenya's political leaders to enact reforms that would hold both recent and past human rights violators accountable for their actions in order to ensure lasting stability in the country. HRW's statement praised efforts by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to broker a deal between ruling and opposition parties [...]