Public trust in the Chinese judiciary needs in be restored in the face of court corruption and systemic failures to implement court orders, according to a report by the China's chief justice submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Monday. The report says that 800,000 court orders remain unimplemented by the courts [...]

Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri told a British appeals court Monday that his February conviction on incitement to murder charges should be overturned on the grounds that he was denied a fair trial. Hamza was convicted on 11 of 15 counts of inciting murder for urging his followers to kill Jews and other non-Muslims and [...]

Khalil al-Dulaimi, chief defense counsel for Saddam Hussein , appeared in court Monday, presented 12 demands to the judge to be satisfied to end the ongoing defense team boycott, and stormed out of court after the presiding judge told him that Arab and foreign lawyers may only appear as advisors to Hussein. Al-Dulaimi demanded an [...]

A British advocacy group condemned the UK government for failing to properly regulate hired mercenaries operating in Iraq and Afghanistan in a report released Monday that proposes regulations to hold mercenaries accountable for alleged abuses. The report by the War on Want charges that no prosecutions have been filed against paid mercenaries, despite several documented [...]

Absentee Ohio voters must continue to show proof of ID when casting ballots after a federal appeals court on Sunday stayed a lower court order , handed down last week, that would have temporarily suspended Ohio's voter ID law . The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's [...]

The North Korean government is "actively committing crimes against humanity" by the starvation and political repression of North Korean citizens, according to a report released Sunday by a blue-ribbon panel comprised of Vaclav Havel , former President of the Czech Republic; former Prime Minister of Norway Kjell Magne Bondevik ; and Holocaust survivor and Nobel [...]

Interim Audit Report on Inappropriate Use of Proprietary Data Markings By The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) Contractor, US Federal Acquisition Regulation, October 29, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Last-minute voter turnout pushed the proposed new Serbian constitution over the required 50% margin for adoption late Sunday. The two-day referendum on the draft charter, which includes a controversial preamble asserting Serbia's ongoing claim to Kosovo, got off to a slow start on Saturday, with only 17.81% of eligible voters casting ballots. Preliminary Sunday polls [...]

Israeli President Moshe Katsav Sunday evening rejected a recommendation issued earlier in the day by Israeli Attorney General Menahem Mazuz that he voluntarily suspend his presidential duties pending the conclusion of a criminal investigation into alleged sexual harassment. In a legal opinion, Mazuz had informed the country's Supreme Court that the president must "consider suspending [...]

China's legislature Saturday finished the unprecedented sixth reading of a landmark private property bill intended to protect state, collective and private property . If the National People's Congress passes the legislation next March as anticipated, it will be the first bill in China's history to specifically protect private ownership. The controversial bill has already sparked [...]