The US Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted in favor of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) , which would better equip US law enforcement to combat websites engaged in the pirating of movies, television programs and music. The bill was approved by a vote of 19-0, and has received strong support from [...]
The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) of the UN General Assembly on Thursday adopted a resolution detailing its concerns with human rights violations in North Korea . Passed 100-18 with 60 abstentions, the resolution takes issue with “he persistence of continuing reports of systematic, widespread and grave violations of civil, political, economic, social and [...]
Chief Justice Charles Canady of the Florida Supreme Court issued a memorandum Wednesday to the chief judges of Florida’s 20 judicial circuits directing them to ensure that all foreclosure proceedings in the state are open to the public. The directive came in response to transparency concerns raised by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , [...]
Accused Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout pleaded not guilty in a US court on Wednesday and is currently being held without bail. Bout faces charges stemming from a 2008 indictment for selling weapons to a terrorist group and conspiring to kill US nationals. Bout was arrested in 2008 in a joint operation carried out by [...]
A member of the Georgia House of Representatives introduced legislation on Wednesday to ban enrollment of illegal immigrants in public post-secondary education institutions. The bill, introduced by Rep. Tom Rice (R) , amends Title 50, Chapter 36 of the Georgia code to include post-secondary education among the public benefits that require a verification of lawful [...]
JURIST Special Guest Columnist Michael Serota of Georgetown Law School’s Street Law Clinic says that engaging Americans on the topic of constitutional interpretation is central to the development of our country. His own experiences with students suggest that it is worth devoting resources to improving the public discourse over constitutional interpretation…. Here is a hard [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay warned Wednesday that, despite the Bolivian government’s reforms, most indigenous people and other vulnerable groups continue to suffer from extreme poverty and exclusion . Pillay commended progress by the Bolivian government in adopting reforms to end discrimination while voicing concerns over the lack of access to justice, [...]
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a state statute and portion of the New Jersey Constitution authorizing the recall of US senators is unconstitutional. The ruling was issued in a case involving efforts to recall Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) . The recall proceedings were triggered last September after a recall committee filed a [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says that while pundits on either side of the political spectrum may criticize the trial of or verdict against Ahmed Ghailani, the case shows that US civilian courts can provide justice even in cases of terrorism… An American jury has convicted Ahmed [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against Michigan government officials, claiming that the state’s juvenile sentencing laws are unconstitutional. The nine plaintiffs are adults who were sentenced to life without parole when they were minors. The rights group argues that [...]
