The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in a dispute over the punitive damages to be paid by Exxon Mobil for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill . Exxon Mobil and its shipping subsidiary have been ordered to pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages for the spill of 11 million gallons of crude oil in [...]

US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Sunday that unless US Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey clarifies that he believes waterboarding is torture, Graham will consider opposing Mukasey's nomination. Speaking on CBS News' Face The Nation , Graham said that if Mukasey does not express opposition to the use of waterboarding, it will raise serious doubts [...]

Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed on Monday denied accusations of corruption during questioning by officials from the country's anti-corruption commission , according to Hasina's lawyer. Hasina was questioned at the converted prison where she has been held since her July arrest on charges that she allegedly extorted approximately $1.16 million from two businessmen. [...]

H. Harry Roque Jr. : "Due to the inherent problems in defining terrorism, crimes ordinarily punished by the penal laws are now sought to be punished under the PHSA with a corresponding increased penalty with no clear test or measure when the penal laws or the PHSA applies. Also, the powers granted to the courts [...]

Several human rights groups have challenged Israel's decision to reduce fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip and its plan to cut the electricity supply, saying Sunday that the move could create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Gisha and nine other human rights groups requested an injunction from the the Israeli Supreme Court Sunday, immediately following [...]

JURIST Guest Columnists Amy Ross of the University of Georgia Department of Geography and Chandra Lekha Sriram, Chair of Human Rights at the University of East London School of Law (UK), say that former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's quick exit from a Paris speaking event last week in the face of a torture lawsuit [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Kent Roach of the University Toronto Faculty of Law says that Canada's parliament needs to slow down and conduct an intelligent debate on the merits of two new anti-terrorism bills introduced in quick succession last week by Canada's minority Conservative government… Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day tabled new legislation in the [...]

Two Egyptian journalists and an opposition leader have been sentenced to a month in prison after being convicted in absentia of libel, court officials said Sunday. The journalists, Anwar el-Hawari and Younes Darwish, of opposition party Al-Wafd's daily newspaper and Al-Wafd leader Mahmoud Abaza, have appealed the verdict and remain free on bail. Two lawyers [...]

The American Bar Association (ABA) said Monday that there are serious flaws in the fairness and accuracy of several state death penalty systems , and called for a nationwide moratorium on executions . The ABA task force studied eight sample states – Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee – and found poor [...]

China's National People's Congress (NPC) Sunday adopted a draft amendment to the country's Law on Lawyers that will grant defense lawyers more power in criminal prosecutions. The amendment, the first since the original law's implementation in 1997, includes a loosening of restrictions on face-to-face meetings between lawyers and their clients, increased access to court documents [...]