The New York Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that New York may impose a sales tax on out-of-state retailers that do business within the state. At issue in the case was a 2008 state tax law known as the Internet Tax , which places a sales tax on out-of-state online businesses that generate at [...]

A Slovak court announced Thursday that the death sentence of 98 year-old Laszlo Csatary has been commuted to a sentence of life imprisonment in order to adhere to modern Slovak law. A court in Czechoslovakia sentenced Csatary to death in absentia in 1948, but the country subsequently abolished the death penalty before dividing into Slovakia [...]

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on Wednesday expressed concern about excessive detention and lack of legal assistance in Brazil, after a ten day visit to the country. The group found that Brazil regularly detains individuals for minor criminal offenses, and some detainees have to wait months to see a lawyer. The rights [...]

The Georgia General Assembly on Thursday amended Senate Bill 160 , implementing stricter security and immigration compliance than the original 2011 version. The modifications impose tougher penalties and heighten identification requirements. First, the bill requires all public employers, their contractors and subcontractors to verify the work eligibility and “lawful presence” of all new employees though [...]

The Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on Friday ruled that Pol Pot’s former deputy Nuon Chea is fit to continue standing trial after the recent death of co-defendant Ieng Sary . The March 14 death of the Khmer Rouge co-founder renewed fears that the aging defendants may not [...]

The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar , Tomas Ojea Quintana, expressed serious concerns in a report on Thursday over growing violence between Muslim and Buddhist communities in Myanmar. The Special Rapporteur urged bold action by the Myanmar government to combat this trend, and stated that government inaction has helped fuel [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can suspend power plant construction projects before project completion based on evidence that a plant is underestimating the extent to which the project will affect its aggregate pollutant emissions. The Clean Air Act (CAA) forbids the construction of [...]

The war crimes court for Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday convicted a former paramilitary unit commander from Montenegro on multiple counts of murder, torture, rape and looting committed during the the civil war in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995) and sentenced him to 45 years of imprisonment . While fighting for the Bosnian Serbs, Veselin Vlahovic [...]

Police in China arrested and detained the brother-in-law of Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy activist Liu Xiaobo on Friday on charges of fraud. Liu Hui was formally charged two weeks ago in a real estate dispute. Liu Hui’s arrest may be retaliation for allegedly subversive activities by the Liu family against the Chinese government. [...]

The Indiana Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the state’s school voucher program. The voucher program allows low- and middle-income families to apply public funds towards the cost of attending private schools. Opponents of the voucher program claim that money is diverted from public schools, but the court was not swayed by these arguments: First, the [...]