Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to reject a proposed amnesty resolution that would grant pardons for crimes committed during the 25 years of war in Afghanistan , according to spokesman Karim Rahimi on Monday. Rahimi said the president believed the bill to be against basic constitutional principles and Islamic laws, because only victims of [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on Tuesday that a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for allegedly discriminating against female employees should go to trial, upholding a 2004 certification of the class . The court stated that expert opinions, together with factual, statistical, and anecdotal evidence, presented significant proof of [...]

Texas Senator Jane Nelson (R) , Chairwoman of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission , urged Texas Governor Rick Perry Tuesday to rescind his executive order making Texas the first US state to require that girls be vaccinated for the human papilloma virus (HPV) , which is the primary cause of cervical cancer. Gov. [...]

UK senior judges have agreed that full Islamic veils should not be worn in British courts and tribunals, according to a report in Tuesday's London Times. After consulting with legal advisers, a panel of senior judges have included in a set of proposed new court guidelines the preference for Muslim women not to wear the [...]

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Monday that the Australian government will do more to pressure the US to expedite the trial of David Hicks . In a cabinet meeting on Monday, officials informed Howard of the growing public concern about the case , and Howard later told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he was [...]

About 60 nations pledged Tuesday to refrain from the illegal and unacceptable use of child soldiers in armed conflicts during the second day of Free Children from War , a global conference in Paris. Hosted by the French Foreign Ministry and UNICEF , the conference adopted the Paris Commitments and formally unveiled the more extensive [...]

A proposed bill on corporate manslaughter came to a standstill in the UK House of Lords on Monday when Conservative and Liberal Democrats voted for an amendment which broadened the scope of the law to include deaths in prisons and police cells. The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill was proposed by the government to [...]

The government of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) promised to continue fighting to adopt legislation that would grant legal recognition to same-sex partnerships after Australia's attorney general recommended Tuesday that the country's federal government overturn a proposed civil unions law for the second time. In December 2006, ACT Attorney General Simon Corbell introduced the Civil [...]

The US military judge in the court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada prohibited international and constitutional law scholars from testifying Monday about the legality of the war. Watada faces charges of missing movement and conduct unbecoming an officer for his refusal to be deployed to Iraq with his unit in June 2006. Last month, the [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law Monday a bill moving the Russian Constitutional Court from its current Moscow location to St. Petersburg. The bill received final parliamentary approval last month with a 147-2 vote in Russia's Federation Council to continue working from a Moscow base. Putin, a St. Petersburg native, has previously said that [...]