The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Tuesday sent to Congress its National Broadband Plan , which seeks to enact regulations to update the communications infrastructure in the US and to make broadband service available to millions of Americans. The plan is mandated by provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) . Notable [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Laurie Blank of Emory Law's International Humanitarian Law Clinic says while legal debates about sovereign immunity most often center on principles of comity versus principles of victim access to justice, courts ruling on this issue should not forget about broader policy considerations and national security…. Remarkably, the United States Supreme Court and [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that he would not delay his plan to set up a UN panel to investigate allegations of human rights violations during the Sri Lankan civil war . Ban made the statement during a press conference in response to a question about a letter from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to [...]
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday that the practice of segregating Roma minority primary school students in Croatia from other pupils is discriminatory. The court declared the practice to be in contravention of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights , which prohibits discrimination, and of [...]
The Afghanistan Office of the President openly confirmed for the first time on Tuesday that the government has enacted a law providing a blanket pardon for all war crimes and human rights violations occurring before December 2001. Spokesperson Waheed Omar said that the National Stability and Reconciliation Law was passed in 2007 by two-thirds of [...]
Chinese officials on Tuesday repeated warnings to Google that even if the company decides to leave the country, it must obey Chinese laws and continue to filter search results. Spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce Yao Jian said that Google agreed to follow Chinese laws when it entered the market in 2006 and again warned [...]
A judge in Sierra Leone ruled Tuesday that a woman has the right to become a regional political leader in the country. The High Court of Justice reversed a previous ban that had prevented Iye Kendor Bandabla from her birthright to compete for the position of paramount chief in her local district. The decision also [...]
Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee on Monday introduced the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 , aimed at increasing financial regulation in the wake of the recent financial crisis. The bill includes a provision meant to protect consumers from predatory lending by creating a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau housed within the Federal Reserve [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the execution of Lawrence Reynolds, an Ohio inmate challenging the state's lethal injection procedure. Reynolds, who was convicted of strangling an elderly neighbor to death in 1994, asked the Supreme Court to postpone his execution in order to allow him time to assert his challenge. The [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist William G. Ross of Cumberland School of Law, Samford University, says recent comments by Chief Justice Roberts responding to President Obama's criticism of the Supreme Court's Citizen's United ruling were not disrespectful toward the institutions of Congress or the presidency or toward any particular person…. Chief Justice Roberts’ comments last week concerning [...]
