US military branches continue to accept a greater number of recruits with criminal records, granting recruiting waivers , according to data compiled by the US Defense Department. The Army accepted over twice as many recruits with criminal records in 2006 than it did in 2003, granting 901 felony waivers in 2006 as compared to the [...]

Argentina has made a formal request that Spain extradite former Argentine President Isabel Peron , officials from the Argentinean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. The request was made in connection to Federal Judge Raul Acosta's investigation into Peron's alleged involvement in the disappearance of political opponent Hector Aldo Fagetti Gallego in 1976. Peron was arrested last [...]

Bec Hamilton : "In April 2006, the UN General Assembly established the Human Rights Council to replace the much beleaguered Commission on Human Rights. In December 2006, the 47-member Council held a special session to discuss the situation in Darfur. Its decision to send an independent mission of experts to assess the situation in Darfur [...]

Islamic American Relief Agency v. Gonzalez, US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, February 13, 2006 . Read the full text of the ruling . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Aziz Huq : "When does the Bush Administration love international law? For those who have followed the Administration's seemingly implacable hostility to the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol, the answer has seemed to be "never." But when it comes to its quest for unchecked powers in the name of national security, international law [...]

Freed Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr , the victim of an alleged 2003 CIA kidnapping and extraordinary rendition from Milan, is planning a lawsuit against the United States and Italy, according to his lawyer Montasser al-Zayat . Zayat told the Washington Post Monday after Nasr's release that he would be seeking damages for kidnapping, [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday upheld a freeze on the assets of the Islamic-American Relief Agency of Columbia, Missouri on the grounds that it was an affiliate of the Islamic African Relief Agency , a Sudanese group accused of funneling money to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. [...]

US Marine Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of murder, kidnapping, housebreaking, larceny and conspiracy for his role in the death of Iraqi civilian Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania in April 2006. A military judge at Camp Pendleton will sentence Pennington during a two-day hearing if his guilty plea is accepted. [...]

A federal judge in Raleigh, North Carolina Tuesday sentenced David Passaro to eight years and four months in prison as well as three years of supervised release on charges related to his abuse of a detainee in Afghanistan . Passaro was convicted last year on three misdemeanor counts of simple assault and one felony count [...]

A bill to end forced marriages was proposed in the parliament of Pakistan by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party (Quaid) Tuesday. The Prevention of Anti-women Practices Bill 2006 would also outlaw a tribal custom in which a woman is compelled to marry into a rival tribe or family to settle a dispute. Each offense [...]