[JURIST] Russian president Dmitry Medvedev Thursday signed anti-corruption legislation [press release] passed by the country's parliament earlier this month. Medvedev has pushed anti-corruption reforms since taking office [JURIST report] in May. The new law imposes income reporting requirements on persons holding public office [RIA Novosti report], restricts gifts and makes a variety of amendments to existing anti-corruption legislation. In a late September speech to the first session of the country's new Anti-Corruption Council [JURIST report], Medvedev said:

Corruption in our country has taken on not only massive dimensions and occurs on a massive scale, it has also become commonplace and routine – something that characterizes the lives of our citizens. And as you know, it is not banal bribes – regardless of their size – that I am referring to, but rather a serious illness which affects our economy and corrupts all of society. In this regard fundamentally lowering the level of corruption is, of course, a strategic challenge facing our country. The achievement of this goal is directly connected with the protection of property rights in Russia, strengthening the legal and judicial systems, and the expansion of free enterprise

[JURIST] The UN General Assembly [official website] Wednesday adopted a resolution [press release] criticizing human rights violations in Myanmar [JURIST news archive]. The resolution also called for the release of political prisoners, and expressed dissatisfaction with the country's transition to democracy, which, it alleges, has lacked transparency and fairness. An unnamed Myanmar representative in the chamber agreed that human exploitation was unacceptable, but defended his country's efforts to democratize and called the resolution "blatant interference" with its political autonomy. The resolution passed passed 80-25 [resolutions summary] with 45 nations abstaining.

Human rights advocacy groups and UN officials including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [JURIST reports] have recently expressed concern over excessively harsh prison terms issued to dissidents by Myanmar judges. Myanmar, which has been ruled by its military since 1988, has been under increased international pressure to democratize since well-publicized anti-government protests [JURIST report] in 2007.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] Wednesday upheld [opinion, PDF] a district court ruling that two Kentucky statutes regulating interstate wine sales were unconstitutional. The Sixth Circuit agreed that KRS 243.155 and KRS 244.165 [texts], requiring out-of-state wine to be purchased in-person, were discriminatory and thus violate the Commerce Clause [Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3; text] of the US Constitution. The court found that the in-person requirement, which would force Kentucky residents to travel as much as 4,800 miles in some circumstances, was financially infeasible. Judge Eric L. Clay, writing for the court on whether plaintiffs had met the burden of demonstrating the laws favored in-state actors and burdened out-of-state actors:

Because of the economic and logistical barriers caused by the in-person requirement, small Kentucky wineries benefit from less competition from out-of-state wineries. ... Kentucky’s wholesalers receive benefits that are even more direct: based upon the evidence presented by Plaintiffs, [they and similar wineries] would bypass Kentucky’s wholesalers altogether if the in-person purchase requirement were lifted.