Sweden, Finland and Portugal have joined Britain, Denmark, Ireland and the Czech Republic in postponing their ratifications of the EU constitution after European heads of governent Thursday agreed to extend the ratification deadline into 2007. Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said Friday in a Swedish radio interview that if France and the Netherlands were not [...]

In a rare federal case involving gay marriage, a US District Court judge on Thursday ruled that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress does not violate the Constitution. Judge Gary Taylor declined to rule on whether California's ban on same-sex marriage violates the civil rights of a gay couple from Orange County [...]

Senate Democrats refused a Republican compromise over the nomination of John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN Thursday, demanding more information than GOP leadership offered on his pre-Iraq war assessments of several countries' weapons programs. Democrats want materials from preparations for Bolton's Congressional testimony on Syria's weapons and classified National Security Agency intercepts, basing [...]

Prominent humanitarian aid groups are meeting Friday with International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, currently investigating war crimes in Darfur . The unusual meeting was called by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in New York and talks are expected to include "opportunities. . . for cooperation" between the prosecutor and represented aid [...]

The US Department of Defense has awarded Kellogg Brown and Root Services , the engineering and construction arm of Halliburton , the contract to build a planned $30 million permanent detention facility and security fence at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay Thursday. The facility, to be completed by July 2006, will be a [...]

Taiwan's Supreme Court Friday rejected an opposition appeal to overturn the result of a disputed 2004 presidential election won by Chen Shui-Bian in a close race. In the March election Chen defeated Nationalist Party candidate Lien Chen by fewer than 30,000 votes out of 13.5 million cast. Lien had charged election irregularities and contended that [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist William Schabas says that the seemingly-interminable trial of Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague is a poor model for international justice, and in the long run may not serve the purpose for which it was undertaken… The trial of Slobodan MiloÅ¡ević, now underway in the Hague for more than three years and likely [...]

Smelt, et al. v. County of Orange, et al., United States District Court for the Central District of California, Judge Gary Taylor, June 16, 2005 . Read the full text of the opinion here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker , whose country currently holds the EU Presidency , said Thursday that EU leaders have decided to extend the ratification deadline for the proposed European constitution until at least 2007. The announcement came after the first day of an EU "crisis summit" forced to address the treaty's future in the [...]

Leading Thursday's securities and corporations law news, "Big Four" accounting firm KPMG has apologized for creating illegal tax shelters. The firm vowed to clean up its practices and culture. The apology is part of an effort by KPMG to avoid the type of criminal prosecution that seriously damaged rival firm Arthur Andersen. Read the KMPG [...]