Real-time comments on legal news by newsmakers, activists, legal experts and special guests. http://jurist.org/hotline JURISTremove_this@pitt.edu JURIST Guest Columnist Eric Leonard, the Henkel Family Chair in International Affairs at Shenandoah University, says the ICC should constantly adhere to a policy of prudent advocacy, since interfering in "low-level" situations would cause a multitude of legal, political and financial problems...Recently a group of Maldives lawyers submitted a case to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The case involved the detention of a Maldives judge accused of corruption and political bias in his professional conduct. At issue is the means of meting out justice in the Maldives, with the Maldives lawyers contending that the judge in question was "kidnapped" by the Maldives National Defence Force, an action they believe constitutes http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/02/eric-leonard-icc-jurisdiction.php 2012-02-08T12:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/02/eric-leonard-icc-jurisdiction.php Stephen Krug JURIST Guest Columnist Jill Levenson, Associate Professor of Psychology at Lynn University, says that sex offender residency restrictions often do little to prevent repeat offenses because are based on stereotypical notions of recidivism among sex offenders...Recently, the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that a policy banning registered sex offenders from entering Albuquerque's public libraries is unconstitutional. Over the past decade the availability of online sex offender registries has enabled widespread awareness of sexual offenders living in the community, increasing concerns for the safety of children and leading politicians to pass laws restricting where sex offenders can live, work and even be present. Residence restrictions in 30 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/02/jill-levenson-sexoffenders-residency.php 2012-02-02T08:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/02/jill-levenson-sexoffenders-residency.php Leah Kathryn Sell JURIST Guest Columnist Kelsey Alford-Jones, Director of Guatemala Human Rights Commission, argues that it is important for the Public Prosecutor's Office and president to follow through with the genocide charges against Rios Montt to strengthen Guatemala's judiciary and bring justice to the victims of genocide...On Thursday, January 26, Guatemala's former dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt, became the first head of state in Latin America to be charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. The charges identify Montt as the intellectual author of the crimes committed by armed forces in 1982 and 1983 in Guatemala's Ixil Triangle (San Juan Cotzal, San Gaspar Chajúl and Santa María Nebaj) in the department of El http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/02/kelsey-alford-jones-montt.php 2012-02-01T12:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/02/kelsey-alford-jones-montt.php Brandy Ringer JURIST Guest Columnist Christopher Hale, Senior Counsel at the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights, argues that the Convention Against Torture should not be used as a tool to protect those accused of torture and that the ECCC must prosecute those responsible for torture in Cambodia...Every weekday at around eight o'clock in the morning in the far outskirts of Phnom Penh, a procession of UN busses pass through the security gates at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) or better known as the UN-backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal. The ECCC and its staff will soon be launching the latest salvo in the ongoing war about torture obtained http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/christopher-hale-eccc-torture.php 2012-01-31T17:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/christopher-hale-eccc-torture.php Edward SanFilippo JURIST Guest Columnist Elizabeth Milito, Senior Executive Counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, says that a case recently argued before the Supreme Court will have significant implications for the jurisprudence surrounding judicial deference for regulations promulgated by executive departments...On January 17, 2012, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in United States v. Home Concrete & Supply, LLC, a case dealing with a US Treasury Department regulation and its interpretation, bringing together tax law, administrative law and questions of the constitutionality of agency actions. In December 2006, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was faced with a conundrum: the agency sought to bring charges of "overstatement http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/elizabeth-milito-irs-chevron.php 2012-01-28T16:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/elizabeth-milito-irs-chevron.php Sean Gallagher JURIST Guest Columnist Glenn Taubman, Staff Attorney for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, argues that President Obama's "recess" appointments of three new members to the National Labor Relations Board are invalid because the Senate was not actually in recess at the time of the appointments...On January 3, 2012, the term of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member Craig Becker expired, leaving the NLRB with only two members out of five seats. The NLRB ceased to function that day, since the Supreme Court ruled in New Process Steel v. NLRB that the NLRB lacks authority to conduct business in the absence of a quorum of at least three http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/glenn-taubman-appointments.php 2012-01-28T15:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/glenn-taubman-appointments.php Brandy Ringer JURIST Guest Columnist Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, says that in the recent Golan v. Holder decision, the Supreme Court may have opened the door to reconsidering the unconstitutional practice of augmenting congressional authority in the name of implementing treaties...While legal experts continue debating the intellectual property ramifications of the Supreme Court's decision in Golan v. Holder, I want to focus on the dog that did not bark: the treaty power argument that the government abandoned and the Court ultimately ignored. Although the government succeeded in persuading a majority of the Court that it has the power to withdraw certain works from the http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/ilya-shapiro-treaty-power.php 2012-01-27T18:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/ilya-shapiro-treaty-power.php Stephen Krug JURIST Guest Columnist Johann Bihr, Director of the Press Desk for Europe and Central Asia at Reporters Without Borders, says a new Belarusian law not only limits the online freedoms of individuals, but also creates harsh penalties for Internet providers, all in a government effort to exert more control over citizens...On January 6, Belarus's Law 317-3 took effect, tightening government control over the Internet and raising several questions. Does Law 317-3 herald the creation of a "national Internet" cut off from the rest of the world, like the one Iran is in the process of setting up? Is it a turning point in the escalation of the online censorship on http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/johann-bihr-belarus-internet.php 2012-01-26T10:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/johann-bihr-belarus-internet.php Leah Kathryn Sell JURIST Guest Columnist Will Potter, an independent journalist who specializes in the topic of eco-terrorism, says the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act classification of activists as terrorists threatens to end activism, in part to stem corporate profit loss...A recent undercover investigation into one of the nation's largest egg producers, Sparboe Farms, documented hens mangled in cage wire, many with open wounds, and chicks having their beaks burned off by workers. This is just one of many investigations by animal welfare advocates that have exposed standard industry practices, created national dialogue about factory farming and in some cases prompted criminal charges. Newly released FBI documents show that the government is less concerned http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/will-potter-aeta-terrorism.php 2012-01-23T11:24:04-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/will-potter-aeta-terrorism.php Leah Kathryn Sell JURIST Guest Columnist Jeremy Lipschultz of the University of Nebraska at Omaha says that in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., it seems likely that the Supreme Court will not force the Federal Communications Commission to alter its vague and subjective indecency policy and will not overturn the outdated precedent established in FCC v. Pacifica...The FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. case is the most recent iteration of an ongoing struggle to apply the US Supreme Court's flawed majority reasoning in FCC v. Pacifica — a 1978 decision that set in motion a scheme to try to protect children from broadcast profanity and nudity. While the channeling of such content http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/jeremy-lipschultz-fcc-indecency.php 2012-01-21T14:00:00-05:00 http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/01/jeremy-lipschultz-fcc-indecency.php Stephen Krug