President Bush granted seven pardons on Wednesday to people who have all long since served their sentences for relatively minor offenses. Most of the recipients had been found guilty of commiting various white-collar crimes – one had been convicted of conspiracy to possess marijuana. Bush has issued 46 pardons since taking office; Bill Clinton issued [...]

The British government Thursday is reintroducing controversial legislation designed to curb religious hatred, despite criticism that the law would overly restrict speech. The law was introduced last year, but didn't get through parliament before the general election. While the government defended the bill as a way to protect people from hatred and racism, others have [...]

A German appeals court Thursday upheld the acquittal of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan man charged with helping the September 11 hijackers. A lower court had previously decided there was not enough evidence against him. Despite the ruling , German authorities say that since Mzoudi's student visa is no longer valid, he must leave the country [...]

In response to Sunni demands for a greater role in crafting Iraq's new constitution, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani announced Thursday that Sunnis will be given as many as 25 new seats on the committee with "full rights like other members who were elected by the parliament", meeting a concern that any additional Sunni members might [...]

While jurors in the trial of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy still have not reached a verdict, the company itself settled SEC charges on Wednesday related to his conduct and a company scheme to overstate earnings. HealthSouth will pay $100 million over two years, and promised continued cooperation with the SEC and the US Justice [...]

Israel's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the government's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements does not violate settlers' rights. Judges voted 10-1 in favor of the Disengagement Implementation Law , noting that the lands in question are not within Israel's borders and not within their jurisdiction. The court, however, [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Michael Kelly of Creighton University School of Law says that an International Criminal Court finding of genocide in Sudan could change negative American attitudes towards the new Hague tribunal… Genocide may yet be found to have occurred in Darfur despite an international determination that it has not. Having received the case from [...]

United States v. Marquez, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, June 7, 2005 . Excerpt: The random, additional screening procedure in this case satisfies the Davis reasonableness test for airport searches. The procedure is geared towards detection and deterrence of airborne terrorism, and its very randomness furthers these goals. This was a [...]

In a move to gain support for a draft UN reform resolution introduced last month , Germany, Japan, Brazil and India – the so-called G4 group – have dropped their proposal to give veto power to any new permanent Council members. Their plan would still expand the current Council, which consists of 5 permanent members [...]

Report by Mr. Alvaro Gil-Robles, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, June 8, 2005 . Excerpt: The United Kingdom has not been immune, however, to a tendency increasingly discernable across Europe to consider human rights as excessively restricting the effective administration of justice and the protection of the public interest. The Government itself has [...]