The government of the Netherlands is close to reaching an agreement with the United Nations to host the ad hoc tribunal that will investigate and try suspects involved in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Bart Rijs said Thursday. Rijs added that Dutch Foreign [...]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani announced the formation of a new coalition government Thursday, formally signing an agreement with Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council leader Adil Abdul-Mahdi and Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq leader Massoud Barzani . The agreement between the Shi'a and Kurdish parties guarantees that the coalition government will maintain [...]

Hamas spokesperson Islam Shahwan said Thursday that Hamas security forces have arrested Palestinian Authority-appointed Attorney General Ahmed al-Mghani after al-Mghani ignored an order of dismissal from the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip . According to Shahwan, al-Mghani entered the office of the attorney general after he was dismissed so that he could destroy documents. [...]

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) Wednesday announced he would indefinitely block the confirmation process of CIA general counsel nominee John Rizzo , saying he had reservations due to Rizzo's failure to object to the controversial 2002 "Bybee Memo" and the continued lack of clear legal guidelines for the CIA's detention and interrogation programs. Rizzo, who has [...]

The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state can execute a defendant who begins to exhibit symptoms comparable with mental retardation after the age of 18. Under Tennessee's criminal code , mental retardation is defined as a condition where an individual scores 70 or below on an IQ test, demonstrates "deficits in adaptive behavior," [...]

The Canadian government under former Prime Minister Paul Martin and current Prime Minister Stephen Harper has repeatedly refused asylum requests from US officials on behalf of Chinese detainees held at detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay , according to Canadian government documents obtained Wednesday by the Canadian Press. The 22 detainees, all ethnic Uighurs , were [...]

Lawyers representing the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued in federal court Wednesday that national security letters (NSL) authorized under the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they act as a gag order without any judicial check . The ACLU, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of an anonymous Internet service provider that received an [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says that the International Committee of the Red Cross report on US interrogations of prisoners held at secret so-called CIA "black sites" should be released to the American public… In a just-published article in the New Yorker magazine entitled "The Black Sites: [...]

Lawyers representing the Bush administration argued for the dismissal of a class action lawsuit challenging the legality of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program Wednesday, urging the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to give the executive branch's assertion of the state secrets privilege the "utmost deference" because the US is engaged [...]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed comprehensive constitutional reforms Wednesday, asking the National Assembly to debate measures that will extend the presidential term from six to seven years, eliminate the limit on the number of terms a president may serve, bring the currently independent Central Bank under the control of the government, and give the government [...]