JURIST Contributing Editor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law, former Chief Prosecutor for the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone and a former senior inspector general in the US Department of Defense, says that in the wake of revealed misuse of authority by the FBI under the Patriot Act – compounding other missteps [...]

A UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) investigative team released a report Monday saying the citizens of Darfur need immediate protection against war crimes, blaming the government of Sudan for many of the atrocities taking place there. Nobel peace prize laureate Jody Williams led the group that tried to enter Sudan over a 20-day period last [...]

China plans to gradually lessen the number of executions it carries out while still keeping the death penalty , according to a statement released Sunday by China's Supreme People's Court, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Public Security , and China's lead prosecutor. The statement indicated that China cannot entirely abolish the death penalty, but noted [...]

Zimbabwe police arrested at least 100 people – including opposition presidential hopeful Morgan Tsvangirai – in advance of a prayer meeting in the nation's capital Sunday. One activist was reportedly shot dead. Armed police had been deployed in Harare since Friday after the meeting was prospectively declared illegal. As citizens approached the sports field where [...]

After initial expressions of concern and regret , several top Japanese politicians said over the weekend they would ignore a proposed US House of Representatives resolution calling for Japan to apologize to "comfort women" used by the Japanese army as sex slaves during World War II. Hidenao Nakagawa , secretary general of the ruling Liberal [...]

The Iraqi judge responsible for sentencing Saddam Hussein to death is not seeking political asylum in Great Britain, according to the Iraqi High Tribunal Sunday. Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman has been in London since December but reportedly confirmed to the tribunal that he does not intend to apply for asylum for himself or his family, [...]

South Carolina US senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint , both Republicans, have angrily criticized a Democrat-sponsored proposal to transfer current prisoners held at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the state's penal system or facilities in any other US state. Graham claimed the suggestion was a dangerous and emotionally fueled one which [...]

A Libyan court Sunday granted the defense team for six foreign medics accused of slandering police agents an additional two weeks to prepare for trial. Five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death in December for deliberately infecting 426 children with the HIV virus. The medics have maintained that they were tortured [...]

A revised version of a controversial bill granting amnesty to groups that allegedly committed war crimes was signed into law Saturday by Afghan President Hamid Karzai after being approved earlier in the day by the Afghan parliament, which includes many former militia leaders. The resolution bars the state from independently prosecuting individuals for war crimes [...]

Thousands of Italians rallied in Rome on Saturday in support of a bill that would give legal status to unmarried gay and heterosexual couples couples. The proposal, which has been harshly criticized by the Italian justice minister and the top Italian bishop , would give unmarried couples combined medical insurance, the right to visit their [...]