A judge has ruled that Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and former PM Silvio Berlusconi will not give evidence at the preliminary hearing of Nicolo Pollari, the former head of Italian Intelligence and Security Services , to determine his involvement in the alleged 2003 CIA kidnapping and rendition of Egyptian cleric Moustafa Hassan Nasr . [...]

The Inter-American Conference on Human Rights (IACHR) has scheduled a hearing to explore whether failing to curb greenhouse gas emissions constitutes a human rights violation. The environmental group EarthJustice announced Tuesday that it had received a letter in which the IACHR said it would hold a hearing on the topic. The hearing, set for March [...]

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights announced Tuesday that UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston will go to the Philippines next week to investigate political murders in the country. Alston will report his conclusions to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour . According to [...]

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 [...]