A federal judge has accepted the prosecution's latest proposal to limit the amount of detail former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby can introduce at trial concerning classified intelligence. In a sealed ruling Monday, US District Judge Reggie Walton tempered an earlier ruling that Libby must be allowed to present certain classified evidence to [...]

An Italian court has set a hearing for January 9 to determine whether to issue indictments for over 30 US and Italian intelligence agents in the alleged kidnapping and extraordinary rendition of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr . Italian prosecutors last week asked a judge to issue indictments for 26 US Central Intelligence Agency [...]

Human Rights Watch urged China Monday to "repeal restrictions on lawyers handling collective disputes and representing protesters." In a new report , HRW slammed rules adopted by the government-controlled All China Lawyers Association in March, which place restrictions on lawyers representing plaintiffs in cases brought by 10 or more people. The Guiding Opinions on Lawyers [...]

The US Supreme Court handed down decisions in two cases Monday, including Carey v. Musladin , where the Court held that a federal appeals court improperly overturned a state court ruling allowing a murder victim's family to wear buttons depicting the victim's face during a criminal trial. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth [...]

Over 20,000 people protested in Pakistan Sunday calling on the government to withdraw new legislation that allows rape cases to be tried in either secular or Islamic courts. The Protection of Women Bill, signed by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf earlier this month, amends portions of the Hudood Ordinances , which limited rape action to Islamic [...]

Thousands of Romanian prisoners protested Sunday demanding improved conditions in overcrowded prisons after a bill was rejected last week by a committee of the Romanian Parliament . The bill would have granted early release to approximately 10,000 prisoners with less than five-year sentences. Nearly 6,000 inmates in 24 prisons across Romania refused food, set fire [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Chandra Lekha Sriram, Chair of Human Rights at the University of East London School of Law (UK), says that while the legal pursuit of late Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet in recent years represented a step forward for human rights law, his death without facing trial reflects its continuing limitations… Augusto Pinochet [...]

Chileans reacted to the death of former dictator General Augusto Pinochet in divergent ways Sunday, with some protesting that he died without ever facing trial for human rights violations committed during his regime, others celebrating the news of his death with champagne, and still others some mourning and praising Pinochet for saving the country from [...]

The US Department of Defense (DOD) has indicated that it will seek congressional approval for its planned $100 million Guantanamo Bay legal facility rather than expedite construction by declaring it an emergency expense. US Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, in a November letter to Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John Warner, had proposed to [...]

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani slammed the Baker Iraq Study Group report during a Sunday news interview, says it contained "some very dangerous articles which undermine the sovereignty of Iraq and the constitution." Talabani objected to a proposal to place a US advisor in each unit of the Iraqi army, and targeted another urging adoption of [...]