In Wednesday's environmental law news, Pennsylvania has joined 14 other states suing the US Department of Energy (DOE) , alleging that the agency is 6 to 13 years behind schedule in updating efficiency standards for some household and commercial appliance categories and has failed to issue any new efficiency standards at all since January 2001. [...]

A US lumber industry trade group has challenged the constitutionality of the dispute settlement system under the North American Free Trade Agreement , arguing that the system violates due process. The Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports filed the lawsuit Tuesday after an independent panel under NAFTA had previously struck down US tariffs on Canadian lumber [...]

The Australian government has backed away from proposals to strip citizenship from those convicted of terrorism offenses, instead suggesting that it may be more effective to monitor them. Australian Prime Minister John Howard originally supported removing citizenship of those breaking proposed anti-terror laws. Citizenship Minister John Cobb said, however, that those stripped of citizenship would [...]

Former Afghan mujahideen Abdul Rabb Rasoul Sayyaf said Wednesday that he supported an inquiry into abuses committed by fighters during the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s, but he rejected calls to bar those implicated from parliamentary elections. Sayyaf, a member of the Ittihad-i-Islami faction, has been accused of war crimes during that time [...]

AP is reporting that the Massachusetts state legislature has rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have banned gay marriage but allowed civil unions. Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage when the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that same-sex couples are entitled to wed. Massachusetts law requires that a [...]

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet can stand trial for an alleged campaign of abduction and murder of political opponents during his leadership, Chile's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The ruling was the third by the court stripping Pinochet of the immunity from prosecution customarily granted to former presidents of the country. Prosecutors investigating Operation Colombo, a [...]

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) , its coalition partner the New Komeito Party and its largest opposition, the Democratic Party of Japan , agreed Wednesday to establish a standing constitutional referendum committee in the House of Representatives. Establishing the committee is the first step towards altering Japan's constitution , as the document requires a [...]

AP is reporting that a federal judge in San Francisco has ruled that the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools with the language "under God" is unconstitutional. The judge granted legal standing to two families represented by Michael Newdow , an atheist who unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the Pledge last year [...]

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that a British ban on parent and children-in-law marriages violated rights guaranteed by Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights . A man identified in court as "B" and his son’s ex-wife, identified as "L," brought their case to the Human Rights Court after a [...]

Thousands of demonstrators continued to pour into Kathmandu Wednesday to protest the totalitarian rule of King Gyanendra . Nepali police detained hundreds of pro-democracy activists Tuesday in the capitol city, including a former prime minister, for protesting the king's seizure of power this February. Police detained another 200 activists Wednesday, after detaining a total of [...]