Speaking late Thursday afternoon on behalf of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Chef du Cabinet Mark Malloch Brown said that the UN would take immediate disciplinary action against staff named as wrongdoers by the Volcker commission interim report into the UN Oil for Food Program, and would waive diplomatic immunity as appropriate. Brown also said [...]

Interim Report, Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Oil-for-Food Program, February 3, 2005 . Read the full text of the report. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Bush administration plan to curb class action lawsuits gained a victory today as the Senate Judiciary Committee left intact language that would send many class action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts. The committee approved the bill, dubbed the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 on a 13-5 vote and the full Senate [...]

Following up on a story reported this morning on JURIST's Paper Chase, the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the UN Oil-for-Food program has released its interim report . The report concludes that the conduct of program head Benon Sevan in soliciting oil deals on behalf of a Panamanian-registered trading company was a grave conflict of [...]

Leading Thursday's corporations and securities law news, prosecutors have announced that former HealthSouth Corp. president and director James P. Bennett has been indicted on charges of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading, money laundering and lying to the FBI in connection with a scheme to sell company stock worth $17.4 million. The charges come during former HealthSouth [...]

Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will field candidates in the country's parliamentary elections to be held next month. MDC contends, however, that the polls will not be fair and free and will participate under protest:More than ever the electoral playing field remains uneven and unequal. Rule of law concerns have [...]

A group of conservative European Union lawmakers from eastern Europe have proposed an EU ban on communist symbols, including the red star and the hammer and sickle. The ban would match a proposed EU ban on the display of Nazi symbols. Members of the European Parliament from Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic [...]

Retired Serbian General Vladimir Lazarevic turned himself in to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Thursday to face war crimes charges for his role in the violence in Kosovo in the late 1990s. Lazarevic had remained in hiding for 15 months after being indicted by the war crimes tribunal in October 2003 along [...]

Conservative groups have applauded several legal reforms and initiatives proposed by President Bush Wednesday night in his State of the Union address , in particular his renewed support for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and his call for restrictions on abortion and stem-cell research. Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family [...]

British prosecutors Thursday dropped the remaining charge against Lance Cpl. Darren Larkin, one of three UK soldiers on trial for charges of abusing Iraqi captives. Prosecutors said they could not prove that Larkin was the soldier who forced two of the captives to strip and simulate sex acts after a witness said he could not [...]