UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Paulo Sergio Pinheiro began his investigation Monday into the Myanmar military government's crackdown on protesters by visiting Rangoon's Insein prison and a Buddhist monastery earlier raided by troops. Pinheiro arrived in Myanmar on Sunday after the junta agreed to allow the UN rights expert into the country. He had [...]

Former Cambodian Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith were arrested Monday and brought before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) . Ieng Sary and his wife, who served as Minister for Social Affairs, have been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Khmer Rouge regime. [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has transferred former Bosnian Croat soldier Miroslav Bralo to Sweden to serve the remainder of his 20-year prison sentence, DPA reported Monday. Christer Isaksson, head of security for the Swedish Prison and Probation Service , told DPA that Bralo had been transferred to Sweden several days [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Byron L. Warnken of the University of Baltimore School of Law says that the US State Department's reported grant of "immunity" to Blackwater security guards making sworn statements concerning the killings of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September means much less than many might suppose… Are Blackwater personnel receiving immunity for [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Shubhankar Dam of the Singapore Management University School of Law says that in pressing Pakistan's Supreme Court in the direction of greater activism, Pakistan's lawyers embraced a problematic strategy that unintentionally helped to provoke General Pervez Musharraf's recent declaration of emergency rule with all its dire consequences… "I was too cowardly," Phillip [...]

The government of Sudan Sunday announced it had laid criminal charges against 25 opposition politicians. The announcement came one month after the country's Court of Appeal rejected a request for the release of the members of the opposition Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Umma Party for Reform and Renewal. The charges include illegal possession [...]

The US Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to decide this week if a bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will grant immunity from prosecution to telecommunications companies that assisted in government eavesdropping between 2001 and 2007. The bill would replace the Protect America Act 2007 (PAA) , legislation passed in August that [...]

US Army Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley was acquitted at court-martial late last week of premeditated murder charges related to the separate deaths of three Iraqi civilians in April and May this year in the vicinity of Iskandariyah , according to a statement issued by the US military Saturday. He was, however, convicted under Article 134 [...]

Two Pakistani bar leaders warned Sunday that the government of President Pervez Musharraf is drafting papers to get Musharraf's declaration of emergency and Provisional Constitution Order validated by the new Supreme Court put in place by Musharraf after proclaiming emergency rule. Former Supreme Court Bar Association president Hamid Khan and Vice Chairperson of the Pakistan [...]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused the US military on Sunday of thwarting Iraqi attempts to execute Ali Hassan al-Majid , better known in Western media as "Chemical Ali," and two other former members of Saddam Hussein's former regime. The Iraqi Prime Minister said the US embassy in Iraq had played an "unfortunate role" in [...]