Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Thursday that the United Nations does not have the authority to compel Serbia on the status of Kosovo, and that the two parties need to reach a negotiated agreement on the territory. Churkin reportedly told the UN Security Council that he does not think the "international community has legal, [...]

Mexican leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador , who officially lost the July 2 presidential election by .6 percent of the vote, on Thursday presented new evidence for his claims of extensive fraud, showing reporters television ads by several consumer product companies allegedly containing subliminal messages supporting the campaign of election winner Felipe Calderon [...]

US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday expressed skepticism at the idea of allowing television cameras into Supreme Court proceedings, saying that the justices are concerned that cameras could have an "adverse impact" on the Court's functioning. Roberts reminded advocates of televised Supreme Court sessions that the purpose of oral arguments is to [...]

The US Senate approved an amendment to a Homeland Security Appropriations Act 2007 Thursday that would prohibit the confiscation of legally owned guns during emergencies by a margin of 84-16 . Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) proposed the amendment in response to Hurricane Katrina . During and after the disaster emergency workers and others feared for [...]

The highest-ranking lawyers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines weighed in on how terror detainees should be judged during a Thursday Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the impact of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld . The military lawyers pressed for an approach informed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice , which provides greater [...]

Sarajevo's Canton Court sentenced former Bosnian Army soldier Samir Bejtic to 14 1/2 years in prison Thursday for killing Bosnian Serbs in 1993 during the 1992-95 Bosnian war . A member of the Sarajevo-based Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Bosnian army led by Bosnian Muslim Musan Topalovic , Bejtic was convicted of participating in the [...]

Saudi Arabia would like to have all of its nationals held at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay returned to Saudi custody within one year, Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Turki Al-Faisal said Thursday. Approximately 95 of the over 400 Guantanamo detainees are from Saudi Arabia, including two men that were awaiting [...]

Efrain Rios Montt , a former Guatemalan dictator, has called Spanish National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz's order for Montt's arrest last week unfounded, insisting that he did not know of any crimes against humanity committed by his military officials during Guatemala's brutal 36-year civil war . During a news conference Wednesday, Montt added that the [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist A. John Radsan of William Mitchell College of Law, president of the Iranian-American Bar Association, says that while the silence of Iranian-Americans in the midst of rising tensions between the US and Iran may have been benign up until now, recent history suggests that members of the community may soon need to [...]

A New Jersey state jury in Atlantic City found Merck not liable Thursday for a woman's heart attack, saying that Merck adequately warned doctors of the health risks from the company's painkiller Vioxx . In what was the seventh Vioxx trial to reach a verdict, the jury also found that Merck did not use "unconscionable [...]