European Union diplomats on Thursday agreed to revive an agreement with the United States that compels European airlines to disclose information about passengers flying from Europe to the US. The EU and US first reached such an agreement in 2004, but the European Court of Justice struck down the agreement last month as illegal because [...]

Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants ended a brief hunger strike late Thursday after Hussein missed only one meal. Hussein began the hunger strike in protest of the murder of one of his defense lawyers early Wednesday morning and to highlight the need for additional security. At the outset of the hunger strike, leading defense [...]

US Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorism agents secretly reviewed financial records of Americans listed in an international database after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks , focusing on people with links to al Qaeda, according to reports by the New York Times late Thursday and the Los Angeles Times Friday. The database, from a Belgian cooperative named [...]

Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, UN General Assembly, June 22, 2006 . Read the full text of the Optional Protocol. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales, Supreme Court of the United States, June 22, 2006 . Read the Court's 8-1 majority opinion per Justice Souter, along with a dissent from Justice Stevens. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding that the US Department of Defense publicly release its files about the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians last November in Haditha , Iraq. ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer said in a press release that the request was meant to "encourage [...]

The US House of Representatives voted 247-172 Thursday to pass the Legislative Line-Item Veto Act of 2006 . The bill, which President Bush proposed in March, allows the President to strip special spending and earmarks out of a bill, and then send those provisions back to Congress for an up or down majority vote, rather [...]

Led by Republicans willing to delay a push to abolish the estate tax completely, the US House of Representatives voted Thursday to end taxation for single estates up to $5 million and married couples' estates up to $10 million, beginning in 2011. The bill would reduce tax rates on even larger estates as well, costing [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour Thursday announced the entry into force of an Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on detention visitations. The Optional Protocol, adopted in December 2002 by the UN General Assembly, was signed in May by Honduras and Bolivia, [...]

Thailand's Election Commission (EC) has determined that the ruling Thai Rak Thai political party broke two election laws by paying groups to run candidates in the annulled April parliamentary elections in order to meet election requirements after the main opposition parties boycotted the vote, an Attorney General spokesperson told AFP Thursday. The EC ruled that [...]