UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said Wednesday that he will investigate alleged human rights abuses during his November visit to Myanmar. The visit will be the first time Pinheiro has been granted entrance to the country by Myanmar's military government since 2003, but Pinheiro said that [...]

An Italian trial court on Thursday dismissed a criminal case against a US soldier accused of murdering an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq, citing a lack of jurisdiction over the matter. Italian authorities had charged US Army Spc. Mario Lozano with the 2005 murder of Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari and the attempted murders of [...]

The US Senate voted Wednesday against proceeding to a final vote on the DREAM Act of 2007 , a bill that would amend the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to allow certain children of illegal immigrants an opportunity to achieve legal residency. According to the Congressional Research Service bill summary , [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday stayed the execution of an Alabama man pending the Supreme Court's upcoming decision in Baze v. Rees (07-5439) , where the court has been asked to rule on the constitutionality of lethal injections. Lawyers for death row inmate Daniel L. Siebert argued that Alabama's [...]

A former Guantanamo Bay detainee was convicted by a Tunisian court Wednesday on criminal association charges and will serve three years in prison. The convict, Lotfi Lagha, had been charged with associating with a criminal group with the aim of harming or causing damage in Tunisia, though it is unclear which group he associated with, [...]

Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada received a presidential pardon Thursday from his former vice president and now President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo . Estrada will be released from jail after having served six and a half years on corruption charges under the nation's economic plunder law for allegedly stashing some $77 million in gambling payoffs, kickbacks and [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist William Weaver of the University of Texas El Paso Political Science Department says that the lawsuit by five victims of extraordinary rendition against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan has given the federal judiciary another opportunity to consider its own endorsement of the state secrets privilege, under which the US government can prevent [...]

The People v. John Taylor, New York Court of Appeals, October 23, 2007 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Terrorist Watch List Screening: Opportunities Exist to Enhance Management Oversight, Reduce Vulnerabilities in Agency Screening Processes, and Expand Use of the List (GAO), October 11, 2007 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in testimony on US Middle East policy Wednesday that House members should discontinue an effort to pass a resolution condemning the World War-I era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide . The committee approved the resolution earlier [...]