The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced Friday that former Serb official Mile Mrksic has been transferred to a Portuguese prison to serve his 20-year sentence for war crimes. Mrksic was convicted of war crimes in 2007 for his involvement in the 1991 mass killing of more than 260 captives who had [...]
The US District Court for the District of Columbia held a hearing Friday regarding a challenge to new restrictions on lawyers representing Guantanamo Bay detainees who have had their habeas corpus challenges denied or dismissed. Chief Judge Royce Lamberth expressed skepticism about the new restrictions , which in some cases require a lawyer to sign [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday upheld Louisiana’s Act 490, which allows the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) to revoke an abortion clinic’s license immediately after a regulation violation, rather than allowing the abortion clinic time to comply with the regulation. Act 490, approved in 2010, amended the Outpatient [...]
The US District Court for the District of Columbia declined to approve changes to Florida election law that would have reduced the number of early voting days in five of the state’s 67 counties. The three-judge panel rejected the state’s arguments that minority voters would not be inequitably affected by reducing early voting days in [...]
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Friday that it has received “credible reports” of armed groups in Mali recruiting children for military purposes. UNICEF called on all parties to protect children from the reportedly escalating recruitment rates in northern regions of the country, reiterating that the recruitment and use of children under the age [...]
A Ukrainian court on Friday handed down a two-year prison sentence to the former interior minister under ex-Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko . Yuriy Lutsenko was convicted and sentenced for negligence in authorizing an illegal extension of surveillance over another former official’s driver. Lutsenko is already serving a four-year sentence for embezzlement and abuse of [...]
A city court in Moscow on Friday refused to overturn the municipal government’s ban on gay pride marches for the next century. The court affirmed the Moscow municipal government ruling that any public gatherings that could be classified as gay pride marches are prohibited from March 2012 until May 2112. Russia’s best-known gay rights campaigner [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Ashley Savage of Northumbria Law School (UK) says that taking action to prevent unauthorized disclosures is justified, but legislation seeking to deter leaks should differentiate between types of leaks so as not to silence potential whistleblowers…
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday ruled for the second time in Association for Molecular Pathology v. US Patent and Trademark Office (AMP) that a Utah company does have valid patents on two genes associated with breast and ovarian cancers. AMP concerned Myriad Genetics patents on BRCA1 and BRCA2 [...]
The controversial trial of three members of the Russian feminist activist group Pussy Riot ended Friday with the announcement of a guilty verdict and two-year prison sentence for each of the three women. The Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow found Pussy Riot members Natalia Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich guilty of “hooliganism” characterized by [...]
