A Chinese lawyer and outspoken critic of the Chinese government has accused authorities of torturing him to confess to subversion charges, according to letters and recordings that were recently made public by a fellow activist. Gao Zhisheng alleges that he was handcuffed or made to sit in a cross-legged position for hundreds of hours with [...]

The city government of Washington, DC on Monday asked the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals for an en banc rehearing of a case that led to a controversial ruling last month invalidating the city's handgun ban . City lawyers warn that the current ruling "severely limits" the ability of local and federal legislatures to [...]

Judge Amy St. Eve of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied a motion Monday for a mistrial in the prosecution of Canadian-born former media mogul Conrad Black on fraud charges. John Boultbee, a former associate of Black and his current co-defendant, requested a separate trial from Black in addition to [...]

An Ethiopian court on Monday dropped genocide and treason charges against more than 100 people charged involved in 2005 political protests, and released from prison 25 detainees, including several journalists, after acquitting them on all charges. Finding that the prosecution had failed to prove charges against them, Judge Adil Ahmed ruled against the government and [...]

US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said Monday that the United States is filing a case against China at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for lax enforcement of copyright violations and trademarks. Schwab said that the US will also file a second challenge to China's existing trade barriers, which has hurt the sale of US-produced movies, [...]

Nearly two-thirds of Canadians support having judges elected to the bench, the Globe and Mail reported Monday. According to a poll conducted by Globe and CTV, 63 percent of the respondents favored electing judges, with 24 percent strongly endorsing the idea. Support for the idea was strongest in the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec. The [...]

Jury selection was completed Monday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana for the second federal lawsuit to go to trial involving Louisiana homeowners affected by the Hurricane Katrina disaster . Homeowners Robert and Merryl Weiss are suing Allstate insurance company for bad faith, alleging that the insurance carrier did not [...]

The US soldier responsible for the death of Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari in Iraq in March 2005 told the New York Post Monday that he fired on Calipari's vehicle in self-defense. Calipari was shot to death by Spc. Mario Lozano while driving to the Baghdad airport after securing the release of Italian journalist Giuliana [...]

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) did not consider the full archives from the war crimes tribunal at The Hague in making its finding that Serbia did not commit genocide during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war and was not liable for damages, instead relying on material in the court's public record that had been censored by [...]

Israel is reviewing the names of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners that Palestinian militants have demanded freed in exchange for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit , Israeli officials said Sunday. Shalit was captured in Gaza on June 25, and his detention helped spark the latest round of violence in the region over the summer. [...]