US Department of State legal adviser John Bellinger defended US policies on the treatment of detainees as the UN Committee against Torture began its review Friday of US compliance with the Convention against Torture . During the first of two days of hearings, the committee focused their questions on whether the US has established criminal [...]

A Russian court has ruled that officials at the Siberian prison holding former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky unfairly punished him in December by reprimanding him for leaving a prison workshop without receiving permission. The court has already annulled the reprimand once, but an appeals court overturned the decision on procedural grounds and ordered the East [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, the newly formed political cabinet in Nepal has agreed on the membership of a judicial commission that will investigate state police and security force actions during pro-democracy protests last month that led to the capitulation of King Gyanendra , allowing the formation of a new democratic government in Nepal. Former Nepal [...]

The US Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday added a provision to the 2007 defense spending bill which would require the Bush administration to provide "a US government coordinated legal opinion on whether certain specified interrogation techniques would constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005." The provision was inserted [...]

Serbian police on Thursday arrested three people suspected of helping war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic evade authorities seeking to arrest him and turn him over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for trial. Mladic's fugitive status has been a sticking point in Serbia's discussions with the European Union on possible EU accession [...]

Jury members in the Moussaoui sentencing trial recommended a life sentence for convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui because several jurors believed that Moussaoui only played a minor role in the plot and there were questions about whether the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for lying, according to a report in Friday's Washington Post. [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, says that the Zacarias Moussaoui verdict demonstrates that the best way to promote national security and democracy in the world is by reaffirming America’s commitment to a fair legal system, not by casting it [...]

Al Rawi & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs & Anor, Supreme Court of Judicature Queen's Bench Division, Divisional Court, May 4, 2006 . Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Federal Energy Price Protection Act, US House of Representatives, passed May 3, 2006 . Read the full text of the bill . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

US v. Zacarias Moussaoui, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, judgment, May 4, 2006. Read the full text of the judgment form . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.