Salem Chalabi, former head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) that will open the trial of Saddam Hussein next week, has warned that a proposed bill to amend the tribunal's practices could actually weaken its power and limit international involvement. According to Chalabi, the IST's current statutes were drafted with the intention of conforming to [...]

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Tuesday in several cases where the Court will consider the extent of the federal government's power to regulate the development of wetlands. The Court agreed to hear three separate cases, all of which involve issues of whether federal laws that protect the environment impermissibly intrude upon the law-making powers [...]

Afghanistan's defense ministry said Monday that the country is preparing prison facilities to hold detainees who are expected to be transferred from the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay . Defense ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said US and Afghan officials met Sunday to discuss the transfer of prisoners, but no date has yet [...]

The United Nations is expecting a large turn-out for Saturday's Iraqi constitution referendum , including in areas dominated by Sunni Arabs who have voiced opposition to the charter. The UN's top global election supervision official Carina Perelli said, "We are seeing a political will to commit to the vote as an institutional process which gives [...]

Indonesia moved the three masterminds behind the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings to a higher security jail Tuesday to wait out their time on death row, just one day before the third anniversary of the bombings. According to Bali Justice Ministry spokesman IG Rata, the prisoners were moved to the Batu Prison on Nusakambangan, an island [...]

Abimael Guzman , founder of Peru's Shining Path guerilla movement, told a Peruvian court Monday that he is not a terrorist, and instead labeled himself a "revolutionary combatant." Guzman is facing a retrial on charges that he led a campaign of assassinations and massacres in the 1980s and early 1990s as part of Shining Path's [...]

Indonesian police said Tuesday that they have arrested a man identified simply as "Hasan" in connection with the October 1 Bali bombings , the first arrest in the case. Hasan shared a rented house in Bali with the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up as part of a coordinated attack. Under Indonesia's current anti-terror [...]

The Texas State Library and Archives Commission made public Monday over 2,000 pages of official correspondence and personal notes from US Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers . The documents, which cover 1995 to 2000, focus on Miers' tenure as chair of the Texas Lottery Commission and do not include her views on social issues, nor [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Brian J. Foley of Florida Coastal School of Law says that the less-than-rigorous procedural rules governing the tribunals and military commissions at Guantanamo Bay endanger us as surely as any terrorists… The prevailing belief that the procedures at Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) protect us because they make it easy to keep “enemy combatants” [...]

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Sami-al-Leithy , an Egyptian national transferred to Egyptian custody earlier this month , has told Egyptian television that he was tortured by guards at the US military camp. Leithy, 49, alleged in an interview Sunday that the torture he suffered – including beating and exposure to harsh light during interrogation – [...]