Full Coverage: Law

28.02.2006 In 2005, the Ministry of Justice, in collaboration with Save the Children UK program in Montenegro and Professor Radoje Korac, PhD, Law Faculty, department for family law, formed a working group to develop a draft Law on the protection from violence in the family.

28.02.2006 Amnesty International has welcomed the release of prisoners of conscience Ahmad Ibrahim Didi and Naushad Waheed, but has urged the Maldivian government to take decisive action to reform the criminal justice system to prevent further politically motivated detentions in the country.

26.02.2006 Dr Arifa Syeda, the chairperson of the NCSW, has demanded the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances that have inflicted injustice of the worst kind on women. She has taken up from where Justice Majida Rizvi of the Sindh High Court left off when she retired. A DAWN editorial lauds the move and looks optimistically ahead.

24.02.2006 The subject of piracy has gained on prominence with the start, twenty days or so ago, of the first phase of screening of the legislation that regulates the protection of intellectual property and copyrights in Croatia, under the negotiations for Croatian membership into the European Union.

24.02.2006 According to information available from International Organization for Migrations, the number of victims of trafficking in human beings is reaching alarming levels, while the results from prosecution of such cases are dissappointing. Since 1999, approximately 800 victims of human trafficking found refuge with the IOM B&H. In addition to being saved from their slavery, the victims need legal protection, says Regina Boucault, Head of IOM Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

23.02.2006 London's anti-terrorism policies are sending a "green light" to other governments to abuse human rights and are increasing the risk of torture, a new Amnesty report - Human rights: a broken promise - warns today.

23.02.2006 A new fund will support women's health organizations around that world that have been cut off from U.S. aid because their stance on abortion is not in line with the Bush Administration's. The U.K. has already pledged $5 million.

23.02.2006 American companies are under attack from Congress for helping the Chinese government suppress free speech but it's the U.S. government that really has the power to affect change, argues former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

22.02.2006 The European Centre for Minority Issues – ECPM presented its proposal for changes in the Election Law, with recommendations to develop and promote realistic and just multiethnic society. The proposal was prepared by the expert group for citizen rights working under the “Roma Expert Groups for Roma Integration”, established by ECMI.

22.02.2006 Jasminka Dzumhur, National Human Rights Officer with UN High Commission for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2001, works in Sarajevo and shares her time between Sarajevo and Zenica. For years, she had been active in one of the oldest and strongest women NGOs in B&H, Medika from Zenica, and later with the Centre for Legal Assistance for Women, also in Zenica. Human rights, and women human rights in particular, have been her main area of interest for over 11 years.

22.02.2006 World Intellectual Property Organization technical assistance is "thoroughly inadequate", the world's leading international consumers organisation said in a new report that demands "a wholesale review" of the organisation's advice to developing countries.

21.02.2006 Nestlé admits to targeting 'pregnant and lactating women' with nutritional supplements, baby foods and milk at 'Nutrition Centres' in Chinese stores, says a leading campaign group.

21.02.2006 Corporations are trampling over national and local laws, taxes and other government actions and pushing through new obligations like intellectual property rights using ‘bilateral investment treaties’.

17.02.2006 "Don’t complain, get up and change it." Ashtar Theatre director Iman Aoun, otherwise known as the ‘joker’, is inspiring groups in Ramalla and Jerusalem to act out their political views and thoughts, and to come up with alternative laws underlying the issues to submit to the government.

17.02.2006 Confirming what Amnesty International has repeatedly said, the U.N. issued a report concluding that the U.S. is in violation of the Convention against Torture and must bring detainees to trial or release them. Amnesty maintains that Guantánamo is "just the tip of the iceberg", and calls for other facilities to be opened to independent scrutiny.

16.02.2006 Last week, the Legal Team established by Iskorak, Kontra and the Croatian Women Network addressed the Government of Croatia and its competent bodies regarding the draft-Law on Sports, prepared and presented to the public several weeks ago.

15.02.2006 Since the end of the war in Kosovo, 139 cases of human trafficking occurred, was said on Tuesday in a debate in Mitrovica, organized by NGO “Mundësia” under the auspices of an anti-trafficking campaign, supported by IOM, Finish Government, Office of the Prime Minister for Good Governance and assistance telephone line.

15.02.2006 The Delhi High Court summoned top officials of the Delhi government and its agencies - the Delhi Chief Secretary, Commissioner MCD and the CEO of the Delhi Jal Board - to appear before the court for their failure to check pollution of river Yamuna.

15.02.2006 Nepal's former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has been released after serving one year of a two-year prison sentence. His release came after the royal anti-corruption commission which had sentenced him was disbanded.

13.02.2006 The odds are stacked against women in Darfur for bringing rape charges, which are often reduced to assault or require a male witness. But hopes are high that the International Criminal Court will be able to change the situation. Christine Butegwa from Femnet reports.