France, Britain and Germany circulated a draft resolution on Iran among key members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday calling for a referral to the UN Security Council. The resolution, if accepted by the nuclear watchdog, would open the possibility of sanctions against Iran and calls on Iran to "clarify questions" over [...]

In response to mounting criticism of the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program , White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Tuesday took time during his daily press briefing to react to the two lawsuits filed by civil rights organizations Tuesday against the administration. Arguing that the lawsuits, which challenge the constitutionality of the surveillance program, [...]

The US Supreme Court handed down decisions in three cases Wednesday, including a decision in Will v. Hallock , where the Court ruled that a refusal to apply the judgment bar in the Federal Tort Claims Act is not open to collateral appeal. The court considered the case of Susan Hallock who first sued the [...]

AP is reporting that the US Supreme Court has ordered a lower court to reconsider the constitutionality of a New Hampshire abortion law. In a unanimous decision in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England , the Court vacated and remanded a First Circuit ruling , which struck down New Hampshire's parental notification law [...]

A New Orleans judge said Tuesday that criminal trials in New Orleans could resume by March when the courts will try to deal with the 3,000 trials pending before Hurricane Katrina swept through the city. The first post-Katrina grand jury may convene in February to hear the case of some 40 patients who died at [...]

News agencies in Italy reported Tuesday that Italian prosecutors plan to charge a US soldier with murdering Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari and the attempted murder of an Italian journalist during a shooting at a US checkpoint in Iraq in March 2005. The decision comes after a joint statement released last year indicated that [...]

Switzerland's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday voted against denouncing the United States over purported secret CIA prisons in Europe for terror suspects after members concluded they lacked sufficient evidence. Committee head Luzi Stamm told reporters that current investigations have not yielded any proof the prisons actually exist. The decision seems to contradict a report earlier [...]

Democratic Senator Ben Nelson (NE) on Tuesday became the first in his party to show his support for US Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito . Nelson, seen as a moderate leader in Congress, said in a press release that his support stemmed from Alito's "impeccable judicial credentials, the American Bar Association's strong recommendation and [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Geoffrey S. Corn, Lt. Col. US Army (Ret.) and former Special Assistant to the Judge Advocate General for Law of War Matters, now a professor at South Texas College of Law, says that US claims of adherence to the "principles" of the Geneva Conventions in the "war on terror" may not mean [...]

Center for Constitutional Rights et al. v. George W. Bush et al., United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, January 17, 2006 . Read the full text of the complaint . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.