The Texas Supreme Court has issued an order allowing lawyers from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama displaced by Hurricane Katrina to practice law in Texas for 30 days. The temporary order will put a hold on normal state licensing requirements monitored by the Texas Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee (UPLC) . Texas Supreme Court Justice Dale [...]

A nine-judge panel in Rwanda charged Belgian Catholic priest Guy Theunis Sunday with inciting and planning the 1994 genocide that killed more than 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Theunis was the first foreigner to appear before community "gacaca" courts , which were established to investigate more than 760,000 people believed to have been involved in [...]

Croatia has reopened the trial of eight former military policemen accused of torturing and killing Serb prisoners of war at the Lora military prison in 1992. In 2002, the former policemen were acquitted by a county court in Split, but allegations of bias, mishandling of evidence, and harassment of witnesses caused the Croatian Supreme Court [...]

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has approved amendments to the country's constitution that allow the government to nationalize white-owned farms and impose travel bans on those deemed anti-government. Critics say the land-law changes will prevent white farmers from being able to challenge any property seizure of their land while the travel bans function as a tool [...]

Over 100 Massachusetts lawmakers plan to vote against a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in the state and create civil unions, according to an AP poll. The survey conducted between September 6-9 found 104 lawmakers who plan to vote against the proposed amendment, scheduled for a vote Wednesday. Same-sex marriage has been [...]

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty told the Canadian Press Sunday that he will not let his province use Shariah (Islamic law) to settle family disputes involving Muslims, such as divorce and child custody issues. A 2004 Ontario government report discussed the possibility of applying Islamic law to the settlement of family disputes, and the proposal led [...]

As the US Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on John Roberts' nomination as the next Chief Justice of the United States, JURIST Guest Columnist Bruce Miller, Professor of Law at Western New England College of Law, says the Court's federalism rulings over the last two decades helped to create a legal climate that impaired the [...]

The US Senate Judiciary Committee will begin its confirmation hearings Monday for John Roberts , nominated by President Bush to serve as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States in the wake of the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist . The hearings will mark the first US Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 11 [...]

Lawyers for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein will argue that he has been denied due process of law when his trial begins next month on charges stemming from the killings of 143 Shiite residents of the town of Dujail . London-based lawyer Abdel Haq Alani, part of Hussein's reformed defense team, said Hussein has been [...]

Both Iraqi and UN officials said Sunday that they were unsure when a final draft of the Iraqi constitution would be printed as last-minute negotiations over revisions dragged on. With only 5 weeks remaining before the October 15 referendum on the draft and five million copies of the document still to be distributed, a UN [...]