German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the European Parliament at a session in Strasbourg Wednesday that EU member nations should ratify the European constitution before the next round of European Parliament elections scheduled for June 2009, saying "failure would be a historic mistake." Merkel emphasized the advantages of the proposed constitution, including the clear demarcation of [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales used the occasion of a Wednesday speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute on the perils of judicial activism to suggest that judges are not the appropriate agents to rule on national security issues, and that they should otherwise exercise extreme caution when declaring executive and legislative action as unconstitutional. [...]

Spain's National Court has reissued a warrant for the arrest of three US soldiers who killed Spanish Telecinco cameraman Jose Couso in 2003 when their tank opened fire on a hotel in Baghdad. The warrant follows a December Supreme Court reversal of a March 2006 ruling by a panel of three National Court judges revoking [...]

US Defense Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Detainee Affairs Charles "Cully" Stimson apologized Wednesday for remarks he made last week criticizing lawyers at top US law firms for representing Guantanamo detainees pro bono. In a letter published in the Washington Post, Stimson wrote:During a radio interview last week, I brought up the topic of pro [...]

President Bush Tuesday offered his strongest criticism yet of the Iraqi government's handling of the execution of Saddam Hussein , saying in a PBS Newshour interview with Jim Lehrer that it resembled a “revenge killing:” I was disappointed and felt like they fumbled the – particularly the Saddam Hussein – execution. It reinforced doubts in [...]

Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika confirmed Tuesday that his office is preparing new money laundering and embezzlement charges against former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky . Lawyers for Khodorkovsky first said they expected new charges last month, but Chaika's comments Tuesday are the first official confirmation of the new investigation. Reuters has more. Khodorkovsky was convicted in [...]

A UN human rights expert has received permission from US officials to visit the United States to examine US practices when detaining terror suspects. Martin Scheinin , the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism , issued a statement on the upcoming visit Tuesday: I look forward to having [...]

The former head of the tarnished UN Oil-for-Food Program was indicted by US federal prosecutors in New York Tuesday on charges of bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Benon Sevan resigned from his post last year and fled to his native Cyprus, from where he is unlikely to be extradited . The indictment alleges [...]

The French National Assembly , the lower house of the French parliament, passed by voice vote Tuesday a bill authorizing the impeachment of a French president but otherwise conferring legal immunity on the person holding that office during his or her term. The bill had languished in parliament after being approved by the French cabinet [...]

The Israeli Ministry of Justice said Tuesday the state prosecutor plans to launch an investigation into allegations that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert impermissibly promoted the interests of two business associates in his capacity as minister of finance during the 2005 state sale of Bank Leumi . Olmert supposedly favored his associates in the sell-off of [...]