The European Parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to reject the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in a vote of 39 in favor and 478 opposed, with 165 abstentions. The ACTA is designed to curb intellectual property theft, such as production of counterfeit goods and medicine as well as digital file-sharing of pirated media. The International [...]
The Supreme Court of the UK on Monday began its two-day hearing in the case of a 29-year-old individual detained by US officials at an Afghan prison. Yunus Rahmatullah, a citizen of Pakistan, was arrested by British forces in 2004 and subsequently transferred to US officials who held him at Parwan prison without charges or [...]
UN Chief Military Observer in Syria Major-General Robert Mood on Thursday stated that he believed Syrian authorities were committed to implementing the peace agreement that was reached earlier this week. Mood confirmed that the Syrian government was serious about administering the six-point peace agreement reached on Saturday, designed to aid Syria in ending the violence [...]
The Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday passed a language bill that would allow Russian to be spoken in official settings in particular regions of the country. The legislation, which would allow Russian in courts, education and other government institutions in Russian-speaking regions of the country, has sparked public opposition demonstrations that have continued since the bill’s [...]
The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia on Wednesday signed an action plan to be implemented with the goal of ending the recruitment of child soldiers in the region. Somali Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Arab Isse signed the action plan, which is backed by the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) , at a meeting of [...]
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) on Tuesday vetoed several measures in a series of new legislation that included amendments to the state’s election laws. Two of the vetoed bills would have required voters to produce photo identification for absentee voting and to confirm their citizenship before voting and a third would have required voter registration [...]
Myanmar president Thein Sein on Tuesday granted amnesty to 37 male prisoners and nine female prisoners on humanitarian grounds. Among those released are at least 25 political prisoners , according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners – Burma (AAPP-B) . Upon hearing of the amnesty, Noble Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi called [...]
JURIST Columnist Volha Samasiuk holds an LL.M. from the University of Arkansas School of Law and she was formerly a legal consultant for the Belarus Food Safety Improvement Project. In the first entry of a two-part series, Samasiuk discusses the importance of food sustainability with the ever-increasing world population…
JURIST Guest Columnist Linda Tashbook of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that Rhode Island’s new Homeless Bill of Rights provides an improved set of standards for how states should treat their indigent citizens…
Egypt’s Criminal Court in Cairo issued a decision on Monday voiding a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) that has been in place since 1954. In considering a case alleging that MB leader Osama Suleiman joined a group founded in contravention of the law, the court ruled that at the time of its founding MB [...]
