The Northern Ireland Assembly convened for the first time in more than three years Monday but adjourned after only an hour. The 108 members observed a moment of silence for a Catholic teenager clubbed to death by a Protestant gang and signed registration books declaring their affiliation as Protestant, Catholic or "other." The presiding officer [...]

The US Supreme Court handed down decisions in four cases Monday, including eBay v. MercExchange , where the Court ruled that federal courts need not automatically issue a permanent injunction after finding that there has been patent infringement. In the case, a jury found that eBay and Half.com had willfully infringed MercExchange patents, but the [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia should undertake a series of reforms at its Scheveningen detention unit including reviewing arrangements to implement administrative court orders, separating detainees currently on trial or awaiting trial from those who have been found guilty, and decreasing the lag time before sentenced detainees are transferred out of the [...]

Saddam Hussein was formally charged Monday with murder, torture and illegally arresting 399 people in Dujail as part of a crackdown in the town after an assassination attempt on Hussein's life. Hussein's trial began in October, but under Iraqi criminal law , defendants are not formally charged until after the prosecution has presented its evidence. [...]

Leading Monday's international brief, several civil and human rights groups have criticized the Indonesian government for its refusal to prosecute former Indonesian dictator General Suharto . Public officials say that Suharto's continuing medical problems keep him from being competent to stand trial, but civil rights groups contend that the government is refusing to follow through [...]

Leading UK human rights lawyers and activists are protesting the Blair government’s readiness to limit the application of the Human Rights Act in the wake of a High Court decision last week that permitted nine Afghan hijackers to remain in the UK. Speaking to the Guardian newspaper late Sunday, Anthony Lester QC , a Liberal [...]

Stephen Hadley , President Bush’s national security advisor, defended the recently-exposed government program to collect data on private phone calls Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, saying that it was legal and narrowly tailored. He said that the program does not involve listening to individual phone conversations, since its aim is to reveal terrorist-linked patterns [...]

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has sent a letter to new Home Secretary John Reid suggesting that "we…need to look again at whether primary legislation is needed to address the issue of Court rulings which over-rule the Government in a way that is inconsistent with other EU countries interpretation of the European Convention on Human [...]

The Supreme Court of Israel on Sunday issued a 6-5 decision upholding the legality the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law , which limits the rights of Palestinians to live in Israel. The law, passed by the Knesset in 2002, allows only Palestinian women 25 years or older and men 35 years or older to [...]

US Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal advisor and current chief of staff David S. Addington argued after Sept. 11 that the National Security Agency should listen in on domestic phone calls and emails without warrants, the New York Times reported Sunday, citing two senior intelligence sources. During debates regarding the legality of such [...]