Canada's Arar Commission , the official judicial inquiry into the circumstances under which Canadian Maher Arar was detained in the US in 2002 and removed to Syria where Arar says he was tortured, recommended Tuesday that a new agency be created to review national security activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and that new [...]

Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Miriam was found guilty of genocide Tuesday at the conclusion of a 12-year in absentia trial. Mengistu and 72 other former officials were charged with genocide, imprisonment, homicide, and illegal confiscation of property for crimes committed during the "Red Terror" , where thousands of Mengistu's political opponents were executed. Ethiopia's [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit late Monday postponed the date former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling must report to prison so that the court can consider Skilling's request that he be released on bail while his appeal is considered. Skilling was due to report to the Federal Correctional Institute in Minnesota Tuesday [...]

The UK Court of Appeal on Tuesday rejected an attempt to force the government to hold a public inquiry into the UK's decision to go to war in Iraq . Two mothers of soldiers appealed a lower court decision that they could not challenge the government's refusal to hold a public inquiry. The families sought [...]

The European Court of First Instance on Tuesday annulled a decision by the Council of the European Union to freeze the assets of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) after EU member states put the group on their terrorist watch lists. The group, which is an arm of the National Council of Resistance of [...]

The government of the Australian Capital Territory on Tuesday introduced revised legislation that would grant legal recognition to same-sex partnerships but would stop short of authorizing same-sex marriage . ACT Attorney General Simon Corbell introduced the Civil Partnerships Bill 2006 in the district's legislature, saying that the bill was a result of the ACT government's [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Kathleen Duignan, Executive Director of the National Institute of Military Justice, says that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 again puts US JAG officers in the awkward position of litigating the shortfalls of a military legal process that none of us would like to see our own service members tried under, [...]

Saddam Hussein will be immediately executed and possibly buried in secret if his death sentence is approved by the court currently considering his appeal , according to an Iraqi government official speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity Tuesday. Hussein and two of his co-defendants, Awad Hamed al-Bandar and Barzan al-Tikriti, were all convicted and [...]

US District Judge Lawrence Karlton said Monday that the state of California has six months to remedy overcrowding in the state's prison system, which is 70 percent overcapacity with 173,000 total inmates, before he will decide whether to establish a three-member judicial panel to make recommendations to fix the problem. Karlton said he was giving [...]

The US Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland has settled child sex abuse lawsuits with about 150 people, court-appointed mediators US District Judge Michael Hogan and Oregon Circuit Judge Lyle Velure announced Monday. They reported that "the vast majority of the known tort claims were settled… the Archdiocese has agreed to pay…the few remaining unresolved known [...]