The US Supreme Court on Monday handed down decisions in five cases, including Randall v. Sorrell , consolidated with two other cases, where the Court struck down Vermont's Act 64 campaign law , which places strict caps on campaign contributions and spending. Opponents of the campaign financing law argued that the restrictions violate the First [...]

Opponents of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo filed a new impeachment complaint against Arroyo on Monday, exactly one year after opponents filed an impeachment complaint on three other charges. The Philippine constitution allows only one impeachment lawsuit against a president per year. The charges on Monday allege corruption and human rights abuses for allegedly condoning [...]

Spanish judge Santiago Pedraz has begun his investigation into atrocities committed during Guatemala's 1978-86 armed conflict that included a 1980 military assault on the Spanish Embassy, killing 37 people. Pedraz traveled to Guatemala Saturday in response to a case filed by Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu in 1999 seeking the prosecution of people [...]

Li Rongxing, a former oilfield chief, has been sentenced to death in China after being convicted of taking bribes and embezzling over $4.6 million in the people's intermediate court in Tai'an , newspapers in Beijing reported Monday. The former president of Shengli Oilfield Dynamic, a subsidiary of Sinopec , was found guilty of stealing the [...]

A high-level Nepalese commission probing the crackdown on the pro-democracy uprising in April of this year that eventually led to the restoration of parliamentary government summoned three former royal ministers Sunday, including a top deputy of King Gyanendra . The three members of the King’s former royal government who face questioning for their role in [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Brian Concannon Jr., Director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, says that although the return to Haiti of ousted former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is legally and constitutionally permissible, a double standard in the international community still blocks his way home… Say “the return” when discussing Haiti, and people [...]

Several US senators condemned parts of a national reconciliation proposal designed to end the Iraqi insurgency and facilitate reconstruction, which was unveiled to the Iraqi parliament Sunday by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki . US lawmakers particularly criticized a part of the plan that grants amnesty to insurgents and opposition figures responsible for killing US [...]

Executive order on protection of property rights, President George W. Bush, June 23, 2006 . Read the full text of the Executive Order. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki addressed the Iraqi parliament Sunday on a new national reconciliation plan which he hopes will end the Sunni insurgency and sectarian killings that have hindered reconstruction efforts in the county. According to a dispatch from Baghdad by Voices of Iraq news agency, the plan sets out some 24 guiding principles [...]

Italians headed to the polls Sunday to begin voting on a constitutional amendment package which would give more power to the prime minister and decrease the size of parliament, in the largest set of proposed changes to the Italian constitution since its inception. Those in favor of the package say that expanding the prime minister's [...]