Acting head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Richard Kinley said Tuesday that parties to the Kyoto Protocol mandating that industrialized nations cut greenhouse emissions in order to curb global warming will likely need up to 3-5 years to work out a successor to the pact, due to expire in 2012. Kinley's comments [...]

Former Qatari Justice Minister Najib al-Nuaimi said Wednesday that a request has been made for Saddam Hussein to run as a candidate in future Iraqi elections and that Hussein's defense team has been asked to examine the necessary legal steps to "present Saddam Hussein as a candidate for elections," first as a member of the [...]

Lincoln Property Co. v. Christophe Roche, Supreme Court of the United States, November 29, 2005 . Read the Court's opinion , per Justice Ginsburg. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

An Italian judge ruled Tuesday that a former CIA station chief in Milan is not protected by diplomatic immunity, upholding an arrest warrant issued for his alleged participation in the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr . The judge held that even though former agent and US diplomatic consul Robert Seldon Lady relinquished [...]

The Supreme Court of Mexico ruled Tuesday that prisoners serving life sentences can be extradited abroad, overturning a 2001 decision that prevented such prisoners from answering to charges in the US insofar as punishment there might be cruel and unusual and not directed at rehabilitation of the prisoner. A 1978 treaty between the US and [...]

US Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella defended the use of National Security Letters in a 10-page letter sent to the Chairmen of the US House and Senate Judiciary Committees Tuesday, rebutting claims raised by a Washington Post article that NSLs have been used to spy on law-abiding citizens. NSLs allow the FBI to obtain [...]

AP is reporting that Virginia Governor Mark Warner has granted clemency to Robin Lovitt , a convicted killer who would have become the 1,000th person executed in the US since the US Supreme Court reauthorized capital punishment in 1976. Lovitt was convicted of fatally stabbing a man with scissors during a pool hall robbery in [...]

The first federal Vioxx trial, in which Evelyn Irvin Plunkett is suing pharmaceutical giant Merck for the death of husband Richard “Dicky” Irvin of a heart attack in May 2001, began Tuesday with an opening statement from Plunkett’s lawyer, who told jurors that Irvin died as a direct result of taking the painkiller Vioxx for [...]

Observers of the trial of Saddam Hussein warned Tuesday that mounting political pressure threatens the independence and fairness of the Iraqi High Criminal Court trying the ousted Iraqi leader. A Human Rights Watch spokesman noted that although Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has not directly intervened in the proceeding, his public complaints that the court [...]

A federal court in Maryland has ruled that US law enforcement agents must obtain a warrant before obtaining information from a cell phone service on the location of a cell phone user. In an opinion written by Judge James J. Bredar and issued Monday, the court noted that although the Fourth Amendment does not protect [...]