Momcilo Perisic, a former general and chief of staff of the Yugoslav army under Slobodan Milosevic and later a Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia who pressed for co-operation with international war crimes prosecutors , has decided to turn himself in to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In a statement released by [...]

US officials announced Wednesday they will no longer require a new UN declaration on women's issues to take an anti-abortion position. The current meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women , held to review progress on women's rights and circumstances ten years after the landmark the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women [...]

The Russian Foreign Ministry responded Wednesday to American criticisms of Russia's human rights record in the recent 2004 US State Department human rights reports by accusing the US of double standards. The State Department reports, released Monday , had cited Russian law enforcement for its use of torture, violence, and other degrading or humiliating treatment, [...]

The US Supreme Court Wednesday considered two high-profile cases on the constitutionality of public displays of the Ten Commandments. The Court heard oral arguments in Van Orden v. Perry regarding a large and prominently-displayed monument of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state Capitol appealed from], and in ACLU v. McCreary County , [...]

Dietrich Snell, senior counsel for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and NY deputy attorney general, said Wednesday that he will testify at the German trial of 9/11 suspect Mounir El Motassadeq . Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 for his alleged role in the 9/11 terror plot, but that conviction was [...]

In Wednesday's environmental law news, the South African government has approved a plan to construct the first windfarm in the country. The Director-General for Environmental Affairs and Tourism has approved the windfarm for the Darling district of Western Cape that will include 4 Danish-designed wind turbines and is expected to produce 5.2 megawatts of electricity. [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Wednesday partially reversed a lower court decision that exposed Microsoft to $565 million in damages for patent infringement. The lower court had found that Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser infringed on technology developed by Eolas Technologies and the University of California, but in its opinion Wednesday, the [...]

Lawyers for former investment banker Frank Quattrone said Wednesday that Quattrone is appealing his permanent ban from the securities industry . Last November, the National Association of Securities Dealers permanently barred Quattrone from working in the securities industry in any capacity for refusing to testify about his possible involvement in document destruction and obstruction of [...]

British Prime Minister Tony Blair Wednesday refused to amend the proposed Prevention of Terrorism Bill to include a sunset clause that would require ministers to revisit the legislation in November. The Conservative Party have said that they will vote against the anti-terror bill unless the sunset clause is included, but Blair said Wednesday that the [...]

The US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Wednesday approved the Transportation Equity Act . The six-year, $284 billion highway and mass transit bill stalled last year over funding disputes between the White House and Congress, but chances for passage are now improved, as the White House supports the current version. The infrastructure initiative will [...]