US District Judge Richard J. Leon said Wednesday that systems set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to manage housing payments for victims of Hurricane Katrina had created a "legal disaster" and ordered several FEMA officials to appear in court Monday to testify about the housing program. Leon ruled last month that FEMA [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled Wednesday that a 1982 ban on corporate farming in Nebraska is unconstitutional because it violates the dormant commerce clause. The federal appeals court upheld a lower court decision , which was appealed by the state attorney general. As described by the appeals court, the ban [...]

Hamdan. Rumsfeld, US District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge James Robertson, December 13, 2006 . Read the full text of the memorandum ruling . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Talks between representatives of the Nepal government and Maoist rebels have failed to result in an agreement on the terms of an interim constitution for the country but will continue later this week, according to a Maoist spokesman speaking to reporters Wednesday. Several target deadlines associated with a recently-agreed peace plan have already been missed, [...]

Israel's High Court ruled on Wednesday that construction of a 1.5-mile sector of the country's security fence in northeast Jerusalem could continue, denying an appeal by residents of a Palestinian neighborhood left outside. After the court ruled in November that construction of the section was legal , work was put on hold while a study [...]

A federal judge Wednesday dismissed a habeas corpus petition brought by Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan , finding it was clearly barred under the controversial habeas-stripping language of the new Military Commissions Act (MCA) even though it was pending at the time the Act was passed. Agreeing with a position on pending habeas petitions taken earlier [...]

Outgoing Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney signed an agreement Wednesday allowing Massachusetts state troopers to detain illegal immigrants found or located while the troopers are performing their general duties. The agreement, co-signed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary Julie Myers, provides for 30 state troopers to receive federal immigration law enforcement training under [...]

In a special session Wednesday the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution to send a mission to Sudan to investigate human rights abuses in Darfur . Council President Luis Alfonso de Alba announced his intent to appoint five "highly qualified persons" to undertake the mission. The rights body, established earlier this year to replace [...]

The UN General Assembly Wednesday adopted by acclamation a new international treaty on the rights of persons with disabilities hailed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as "the first human rights treaty to be adopted in the twenty-first century; the most rapidly negotiated human rights treaty in the history of international law; and the first to [...]

The High Court of Botswana has ruled that the government's eviction of Bushmen inhabiting the Kalahari desert is "unlawful and unconstitutional." The suit was brought by 239 members of the San tribe with the aid of the First People of the Kalahari and Survival International . The so-called Bushmen , whose ancestors have lived in [...]