Legal experts inside and outside government are criticizing provisions of a draft bill circulated by the White House Wednesday that, among other things, would allow US military commissions to proceed against an accused "enemy combatant" without the defendant being present, if necessary to protect national security. In absentia proceedings would only be allowed, however, if [...]

The UN Security Council adopted a Presidential Statement Thursday saying it was "deeply shocked and distressed" at an Israeli attack on a UNIFIL military observer post in Lebanon Tuesday that killed four observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, and stressed that "Israel and all concerned parties must comply fully with their obligations under the [...]

Haitian authorities freed former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune from prison Thursday on a provisional release, though Neptune still faces charges that he calls "imaginary." Neptune has been detained for two years since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004 on accusations that he orchestrated a February 2004 massacre in La Scierie, though UN investigators [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has released a list of secret government surveillance operations focusing on war protestors and other political activists in northern and central California from September 2001 through July 2006 . The ACLU described the surveillance operations as "disturbing trend" fueled by "greater funding of federal, state and local intelligence agencies [...]

The Washington Supreme Court official website] ruled 7-2 Thursday that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) must release files documenting sexual abuse allegations compiled over decades for use in an upcoming lawsuit brought by three Washington men claiming abuse by their scoutmaster in the 1970s and 1980s. The files include court records, news reports, documentation [...]

A new US federal regulation announced by the Department of Homeland Security Thursday and published in the Federal Register would for the first time require biometric fingerprinting and photographing of lawful permanent US residents – so called "green card" holders whose numbers are estimated at between 8 and 12 million – reentering the United States [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist and Lebanese presidential candidate Chibli Mallat, professor of law and holder of the EU Jean Monnet Chair at St. Joseph's University in Beirut, says that the historical narratives of the sides in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict currently manifested in Lebanon stand to be reshaped by a legal order imposed by the UN [...]

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Thursday that it had reached settlements with former WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan and six others for their roles in fraudulent adjustments and entries in WorldCom's books and records. Mark Abide, former WorldCom director of property accounting, also agreed to pay a total of nearly $130,000 as part [...]

Attorneys for the US government and for plaintiffs asked the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation Thursday to consolidate more than 20 cases involving telephone companies' roles in the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance program . The government requested that the cases be consolidated into one civil action in the US District Court for the [...]

The current Mideast conflict has halted the UN International Independent Investigation Commission probe into the February 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , Beirut's Daily Star newspaper reports Friday. A source told the paper that Belgian Serge Brammertz , deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and current head of the Hariri investigation [...]