The UK Foreign Office has begun talks with the US on the potential release of eight UK residents detained at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay into the custody of British authorities. The UK government has successfully negotiated the release of British citizens detained at Guantanamo, but has previously declined to lobby for the [...]

Mauritania citizens have approved changes to the country's constitution in a Sunday referendum by 80 to 90 percent, according to preliminary results announced Monday by the Interior Ministry. The changes are being made to the 1991 constitution after a series of votes indicated citizens wanted a return to democracy, in sharp contrast the government of [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday handed down decisions in five cases, including Randall v. Sorrell , consolidated with two other cases, where the Court struck down Vermont's Act 64 campaign law , which places strict caps on campaign contributions and spending. Opponents of the campaign financing law argued that the restrictions violate the First [...]

Opponents of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo filed a new impeachment complaint against Arroyo on Monday, exactly one year after opponents filed an impeachment complaint on three other charges. The Philippine constitution allows only one impeachment lawsuit against a president per year. The charges on Monday allege corruption and human rights abuses for allegedly condoning [...]

Spanish judge Santiago Pedraz has begun his investigation into atrocities committed during Guatemala's 1978-86 armed conflict that included a 1980 military assault on the Spanish Embassy, killing 37 people. Pedraz traveled to Guatemala Saturday in response to a case filed by Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu in 1999 seeking the prosecution of people [...]

Li Rongxing, a former oilfield chief, has been sentenced to death in China after being convicted of taking bribes and embezzling over $4.6 million in the people's intermediate court in Tai'an , newspapers in Beijing reported Monday. The former president of Shengli Oilfield Dynamic, a subsidiary of Sinopec , was found guilty of stealing the [...]

A high-level Nepalese commission probing the crackdown on the pro-democracy uprising in April of this year that eventually led to the restoration of parliamentary government summoned three former royal ministers Sunday, including a top deputy of King Gyanendra . The three members of the King’s former royal government who face questioning for their role in [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Brian Concannon Jr., Director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, says that although the return to Haiti of ousted former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is legally and constitutionally permissible, a double standard in the international community still blocks his way home… Say “the return” when discussing Haiti, and people [...]

Several US senators condemned parts of a national reconciliation proposal designed to end the Iraqi insurgency and facilitate reconstruction, which was unveiled to the Iraqi parliament Sunday by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki . US lawmakers particularly criticized a part of the plan that grants amnesty to insurgents and opposition figures responsible for killing US [...]

Executive order on protection of property rights, President George W. Bush, June 23, 2006 . Read the full text of the Executive Order. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.