Americans went to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in off-year elections. Voters in New Jersey and Virginia are electing new governors , while 39 ballot measures are up for approval in seven states : California, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. Voters in California and Ohio will determine how electoral districts [...]

The US Department of State on Tuesday is releasing its annual list of states considered to be serious violators of religious freedoms, opening the named states to potential sanctions. Officials say countries deemed to be "of particular concern" include China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Vietnam. Uzbekistan is notably said to [...]

Members of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly elected five judges to the fifteen member International Court of Justice (ICJ) Monday. The ICJ is the UN's highest court and settles disputes between governments and issues advisory opinions on topics presented by UN bodies. American Thomas Buergenthal , a professor of international law and [...]

France's Interior Ministry announced Tuesday that the government has authorized local officials to use emergency powers to help deal with riots that have broken out across the country over the past 12 days, mostly instigated by disaffected Muslim immigrant youths. The emergency powers, which enable authorities to impose curfews and carry out raids without warrants, [...]

Two senior Wal-Mart executives were aware that cleaning contractors were hiring illegal immigrants, according to an affidavit filed by the US Bureau of Immigration and Custom Enforcement as part of an effort to secure a search warrant for a 2003 raid on Wal-Mart headquarters. The investigation lead to raids on 60 Wal-Mart stores in 21 [...]

AP is reporting that a lawyer for a co-defendant of Saddam Hussein has been assassinated in Baghdad. Last month, Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi, a defense lawyer for one of Hussein's co-defendants, was kidnapped by 10 masked gunmen and later found dead . Hussein's lawyers have since demanded a delay in proceedings or a foreign venue and [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Jon Stanhope, Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and recently the sole dissenter among Australian state and territorial leaders against strict new anti-terrorism legislation proposed by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, says the anti-terror bill threatens to erode fundamental rights and liberties and even undermines what it means for [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Linda Berger of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, a media law specialist and a former reporter for the Associated Press, says that the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is the latest in a series of setbacks for those who support a federal shield law for journalists… The news is bad these [...]

Charge Sheets, US Department of Defense, updated November 4, 2005 . Read the full text of the charge sheets here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Pentagon Monday charged five more Guantanamo Bay detainees – two Saudis, an Algerian, an Ethiopian and a Canadian – with war crimes, bringing to nine the number of detainees charged out of some 500 held at the Cuba naval station. The announcement from the US Defense Department came on the heels of word from [...]