A North Carolina State Senator proposed a bill Thursday that will protect doctors who assist in executions from disciplinary actions. Senate Bill 114, filed by Republican State Senator Phil Berger , will shield health care professionals including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists from any disciplinary or corrective measures by any board, commission, or other authority created [...]

Russian prosecutors said Friday their case against former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner, Platon Lebedev , is solely a criminal matter and not politically motivated. A spokesperson for the Prosecutor General’s Office said Khodorkovsky wreaked "serious damage" upon the Russian economy. Last December, Khodorkovsky was transferred to a Siberian remand prison for [...]

The US District Court of Maine has ruled that the Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) cannot compel Verizon Communications to disclose whether the telephone company participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance program run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) . In Bangor Thursday, US District Judge John Woodcock cited a "potential risk" to national [...]

The government of Spain agreed Friday to declassify and deliver to Spanish High Court Judge Ismael Moreno intelligence documents he ordered from Spain's National Intelligence Center pertaining to secret CIA "rendition flights" that transferred suspected terrorists between countries. The documents show that dozens of planes stopped at the Spanish holiday islands of Mallorca and Tenerife [...]

The European Commission proposed Friday that all EU member nations criminalize serious environmental offenses and impose minimum sanctions for violations. Commission Vice President for Justice, Freedom and Security Franco Frattini said the proposed directive would prevent environmental criminals from exploiting discrepancies between member states' criminal law systems. The directive would have all EU members treat [...]

Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock Friday denied contentions by lawyers representing Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks that comments made by the head of the US military prison indicated he would not get a fair trial. US Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris , commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo Bay , remarked Thursday that Hicks was [...]

The Constitutional Court of Colombia has ruled that same-sex couples must be accorded the same property rights as other unmarried couples. With eight votes in favor and one abstention, the court held unconstitutional a 1990 law creating a presumption that property held by "a man and a woman" who lived together in de facto marriage [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government Thursday, alleging that "its practice of indefinitely delaying citizen applications" violated due process rights protected by the Constitution and federal statutes and regulations governing immigration. The immigrant plaintiffs in the case, all long-time lawful permanent residents of the [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour filed an amicus curiae or "friend of the court" brief with the Iraqi High Tribunal Thursday arguing that imposing the death penalty on former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan would be a violation of Iraq's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights . [...]

The US military's determination that there is not sufficient evidence to support allegations of abuse at Guantanamo Bay prompted Amnesty International Thursday to renew its calls for an independent investigation into the allegations. In a statement , Amnesty called the military's investigation into the abuse allegations "flawed" as no actual detainees were interviewed and said [...]