JURIST Guest Columnist Leyla Safarova, an LL.M. Candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, is the author of the fifth entry in a 14-part series from the LL.M. students of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Safarova explores property law in Azerbaijan, arguing that ineffective laws, distrust in the courts and a [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Olga Vlasova, Brooklyn Law School Class of 2013, is the Sparer Public Interest Law Fellow. She argues for prohibiting the death penalty for severely mentally ill offenders…
The US Supreme Court on Monday ordered the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to reconsider former Illinois governor George Ryan’s appeal in light of Wood v. Milyard . Wood, which was decided just last week, held that federal courts of appeals, like district courts, have the authority—though not the obligation—to raise a [...]
The UK High Court ruled on Monday that British Internet service providers (ISPs) must block the file sharing website The Pirate Bay . All of the ISPs, except one which requested additional time to consider the ruling, have one week to comply with the ruling . The lobbying group requesting the block stated that the [...]
Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a joint public statement Monday urging the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to stop its recent crackdown on political activists by ending arrests and releasing those in custody. The report claims that UAE authorities are holding political opponents based “solely on their affiliation with a non-violent political [...]
The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC) on Saturday drafted proposed amendments to the country’s electoral law in an effort to prevent future election fraud. According to IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor, about 50 percent of the electoral law will be changed, including alterations in parliamentary elections which would allocate one-third of seats to political [...]
All sides in the Malian conflict have committed war crimes including summary executions, rape, the use of children as soldiers, and the pillaging of hospitals, schools, aid agencies and government buildings, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Monday. HRW conducted a 10-day mission to Mali in April and documented human rights violations by several groups, including [...]
The Bahrain Court of Cassation ruled Monday that human rights activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja would be retried along with 20 others convicted on terrorism-related charges. Al-Khawaja, along with eight others, is serving a life sentence after a closed hearing where the Bahrain military National Safety Court found him guilty in June 2011. On appeal, the Bahrain [...]
The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in Chaidez v. United States to rule on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. In 2010, the court held in Padilla v. Kentucky that the Sixth Amendment guarantee of effective assistance of counsel requires a criminal defense lawyer to advise a non-citizen client that pleading guilty to an [...]
JURIST Columnist Kevin Johnson, writing a special edition of the column authored by the faculty of the University of California, Davis School of Law, says that despite public concerns over racial profiling, the Supreme Court is focusing on issues of federalism in the case of Arizona v. United States, and will likely uphold at least [...]
