The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in Golan v. Holder that Congress has the authority under the Copyright Act to restore copyright protection in foreign works where the work was never registered in the US and the full copyright term has expired. Plaintiffs challenged § 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 (URAA) [...]
The chairman of the UKDetainee Inquiry said Wednesday that his panel will not complete their investigation into torture allegations against British intelligence agents. In his statement, Judge Peter Gibson said that the Secretary of State for Justice chose to conclude the investigation “in view of further Metropolitan Police investigations.” The Inquiry faced criticism from a [...]
The new policy that allows government officials to monitor Guantanamo Bay prisoners’ mail dominated the opening day of pretrial hearings for Guantanamo inmate and alleged USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri on Tuesday. The new policy allows members of a privileged review team to conduct a “plain-view review” of written communications not marked as protected [...]
The Ethiopian government’s relocation of thousands of indigenous people from the western Gambella region has resulted in possible human rights violations, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . The Gambella relocations, which occurred last year, are part of a planned resettlement of 1.5 million people throughout four regions in the [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday in Mims v. Arrow Financial Services LLC that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act does not deprive the federal district courts of their federal question jurisdiction over private actions brought under the act. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the TCPA’s permissive grant of [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled on Tuesday that Madoff trustee Irving Picard cannot appeal a ruling that threw out most of his $1 billion suit against the New York Mets. In the ruling Judge Jed Rakoff found that the only purpose an appeal would serve [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in two cases. In United States v. Home Concrete & Supply LLC the court heard arguments on what can activate an “extended six-year assessment” period for taxes. The case questions if an understatement of gross income attributable to an overstatement of property assets can trigger this period. [...]
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso announced Tuesday that the Commission will legally challenge three Hungarian laws. The laws, passed last month in conjunction with Hungary’s new constitution, are viewed by Barroso and the Commission as violations of EU law. First, the Commission contends that European law has instituted an independent national central bank, but [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) transferred prosecution materials to the Rwandan government on Monday for the first time with respect to a case stemming from the 1994 Rwandan genocide . The transfer was announced at a press conference by the ICTR’s prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow and Rwanda’s Prosecutor-General Martin Ngoga . The decision [...]
The trial of Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon , accused of ordering illegal wiretaps in jailhouses, began on Tuesday before a seven-judge panel of the Spanish Supreme Court . The court announced in October that Garzon would stand trial on the charges after the he was indicted in April for ordering the placement of wiretaps in [...]
