The US Supreme Court ruled 8-0 Wednesday in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NDEC) that 33 USC § 1369 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) is not a jurisdictional bar to suits seeking to invalidate certain agency decisions, and an amendment to regulations made by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not render a [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called Wednesday on Nepal to withdraw a decree creating a truth and reconciliation with the power to grant amnesties for human rights violations that occurred during Nepal’s civil war. The conflict resulted in approximately 13,000 deaths with another 1,300 missing. The 2006 peace accord which ended the [...]
The Maryland Senate on Tuesday voted 30-16 in favor of a bill that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Sponsored by Democratic Senator Robert Zirkin and Republican Senator Allan Kittleman , Senate Bill 297 seeks to lower the penalty for possession of less than 10 grams of the drug to a maximum $100 [...]
India’s lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, passed an anti-rape law on Wednesday in an attempt to redefine rape and increase the criminal penalties associated with it. The law is expected to be passed by the upper house in the current session. The lower house’s changes would allow as much as a death sentence [...]
The Arkansas Senate on Tuesday voted 22-12 to approve a bill that would require voters to show photo identification prior to casting ballots. The bill had previously passed the Arkansas House . Supporters state that the bill will eliminate possible voter fraud , while opponents voice concern over the risk of disenfranchising legitimate voters. The [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday urged Tunisian authorities to repeal a law that criminalizes defamation. The call comes after two Tunisian citizens were charged with defamation for publicly exposing alleged wrongdoing of Tunisian officials. The men face up to two years in prison if convicted of the criminal charges. HRW stated that the Tunisian [...]
The US Supreme Court heard arguments in Mutual Pharmaceutical Company, Inc. v. Bartlett Tuesday to consider whether design defect claims can be brought when a generic drug does not present all the warnings the brand-name version of the drug does, and thus causes injury. Attorneys for Mutual Pharmaceutical argued that PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing directly [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Tuesday in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. that the “first sale” doctrine applies to imported works. When Supap Kirtsaeng came to study at Cornell University, he realized that the same textbooks his peers used were sold at drastically lower prices in his home country of Thailand. He [...]
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism on Monday released its annual State of the News Media Report . Among other notable findings, the report says (for all intents and purposes) that more people should be reading, and contributing to, JURIST. Okay, so maybe it doesn’t say that explicitly, but it’s a short [...]
Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam, cousin of Muammar Gaddafi , was arrested at his home Tuesday in central Cairo by Libyan forces. The arrest of Qaddaf al-Dam coincides with the second anniversary of the air campaign commenced in Libya by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that assisted rebels in toppling Gaddafi’s regime. Qaddaf al-Dam, who was [...]
