The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Tuesday in Fisher v. University of Texas to determine whether the court’s decisions interpreting the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, including Grutter v. Bollinger , permit the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) use of race in undergraduate admissions decisions. Petitioner Abigail Noel Fisher, a Caucasian student, [...]
The Syrian Arab News Agency on Monday published the country’s new draft constitution , nearly one week before Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has scheduled a referendum on the constitution. The draft constitution omits a clause in the old document that upheld the Ba’ath Party as the ruling party in the country, an omission that could [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Jared Mullowney, Texas Tech University School of Law Class of 2013, is a member of the Intellectual Property Student Association. He argues in favor of eliminating clauses from Internet user agreements that allow websites to retain ownership of all user generated content…
A court in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, on Monday dropped the last charges against former member of parliament and Al-Wefaq leader Matar Matar . Two previous charges were dropped against Matar in August: “calling for regime change” and “spreading rumors linked to pro-democracy protests.” The final charge, “undermining public security by assembling with a group of [...]
The Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbios in Lago Agrio, Ecuador denied an arbitration decision by The Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on Friday, forwarding an appeal by Chevron to the Supreme Court of Ecuador. The decision intended to temporarily enjoin the recently upheld $18 billion fine from any international efforts of collection. The [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law says that the ongoing posthumous prosecution of former lawyer Sergei Magnitsky is a violation of the rule of law and a mark of shame against the Russian judicial system…
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday applauded the Somali parties who have reached a “crucial political agreement” on Friday at the Garowe II Constitutional Conference . According to Ban, the agreement provides the steps that Somalia must take in order to go about “ending the transition and putting in place a constitutional order in a [...]
Latvian voters on Saturday rejected Russian as a second official state language in Latvia . Preliminary results from the national referendum show that 74.8 percent of voters rejected adding the Russian language with only 24.88 percent in favor of having two state languages. The percentage split of domestic votes also represents approximately the decision of [...]
A chief US military tribunal judge has ruled that the content of attorney-client mail inspected at the Guantanamo Bay prison is confidential and may not be released. Judge James Pohl made the decision earlier this month in the case of suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri , but the decision may also apply in [...]
The Israeli Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear the hunger strike case of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, despite a military judge rejecting his appeal in early February. Since his December arrest in the West Bank, Adnan has refused food . This hunger strike has been carried on to protest Israel’s policy of detaining [...]
