[E]very cent of taxpayer money will be repaid and damages to the environment and wildlife will be reimbursed. We will make certain that those responsible clean up the mess they have made and restore or replace the natural resources lost or injured in this tragedy. And we will prosecute to the full extent any violations of the law.

Calls for criminal and civil actions have been mounting against BP, as evidence of the oil giant's lack of proper compliance with regulations has come out. Last month, DC-based consumer advocacy organization Food and Water Watch (FWW) [advocacy website] filed suit [JURIST report] in a US district court against the US Department of Interior (DOI) and the Minerals Management Service (MMS) [official websites] for an injunction to halt drilling at the BP Atlantis Facility [corporate website], another BP Gulf of Mexico site. The Obama administration has asked DOI Secretary Kenneth Salazar [official profile] to conduct a "top-to-bottom" reform of the MMS [speech text] and ordered immediate inspections of all deep water operations in the Gulf. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a result of an oil well blowout that caused an explosion 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf. The amount of oil spilled into the Gulf is part of an ongoing debate but the resulting oil slick has covered at least 2,500 square miles. The White House is keeping a daily chronology of events [text].

Japan's continued pursuit of a large scale program of whaling under the Second Phase of its Japanese Whale Research Program under Special Permit in the Antarctic ("JARPA II") [is] in breach of obligations assumed by Japan under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, as well as its other international obligations for the preservation of marine mammals and marine environment.

Commercial whaling was banned by the IWC in 1986, but Japanese whalers defend their whaling as scientific research because they collect data on the whale's age, diet, and birthing rate, before packaging and selling the meat. The Japanese mostly hunt for minke and finback whales, but have begun to hunt humpback whales, which have reached sustainable levels since being placed on the endangered species list in 1963. Last week the Tokyo District Court [official website] began the trial [JURIST report] of New Zealand anti-whaling activist Peter Bethune on five criminal charges in connection with boarding a Japanese whaling vessel as part of a protest in the Antarctic. The Japanese court system does not accept pleas before trial, but Bethune has made admission of guilt for four of the charges including trespass, destruction of property, illegal possession of a weapon and obstruction of business. He has denied the assault charge filed against him which stems from allegations that Bethune threw cartons of rancid butter at the vessel and injured a Japanese crewman in the process. If convicted, Bethune could face a prison term ranging from 15-25 years [TVNZ report], but his lawyer has indicated that the prosecutor may seek a sentence of two-and-a-half to three years. A verdict is expected [Daily Yomiuri report] as early as June.

Concrete initiatives must now follow to provide justice and redress to victims and generally to promote accountability and longer-term reconciliation. The Government has recently created a Commission on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation to address some of these questions. However, ... I remain convinced that such objectives would be better served by establishing an independent international accountability mechanism that would enjoy public confidence, both in Sri Lanka and elsewhere.

In its 2010 Annual Report [JURIST report], Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] cited the failure of the Human Rights Council to adequately address the Sri Lankan conflict as a prime example of the "global justice gap." This gap is caused by the exploitation of international organizations and alliances to avoid accountability for international human rights violations. AI pointed to the complacency of Sri Lanka's regional allies on the council in allowing a noncritical resolution authored by the Sri Lankan government to pass unopposed. The International Crisis Group (ICG) [official website] in May accused Sri Lankan security forces of war crimes [JURIST report] during the last months of the conflict. The ICG claimed that it had acquired enough evidence supporting allegations of shelling civilians, hospitals, and environmental facilities to warrant a independent inquiry by the UN on war crimes in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government claims that no civilians were killed during the final months of the war. In March, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] reaffirmed his plan to set up a UN panel [JURIST report] to investigate allegations of human rights violations during the civil war. Earlier that month, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa [official profile] rejected [JURIST report] Ban's plan to appoint a panel of experts to look into alleged rights abuses in the island nation's civil war, saying it "is totally uncalled for and unwarranted."

For the global economy, corruption is dangerous. Bribery in international business, for example, may center on shell companies and wire transfers, but no matter where - or how - it happens, the corrosive result is the same: stymied development, lost confidence, and distorted competition. The result is unfairness, not justice; the consequence is economic decay, not development.

Corruption continues to be a worldwide concern, particularly in Russia. In December, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin [official website, Russian] urged greater anti-corruption efforts [JURIST report]. In November, Transparency International (TI) [advocacy website] ranked Russia 146th out of 180 countries in its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) [text; JURIST report]. In January 2009, First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman [official profile] reported that corruption cases are increasing [JURIST report] in Russia and now account for about 1.5 percent of recorded crimes there. In December 2008, Medvedev signed anti-corruption legislation [JURIST report] imposing income reporting requirements on public officials and restricting gifts. Medvedev had urged anti-corruption measures since taking office [JURIST reports] in May 2008.

Comity, in sum, serves to ensure that "the National Government, anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests, always endeavors to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the States." A confluence of factors in this case, absent in Hibbs, leads us to conclude that the comity doctrine controls here. First, respondents seek federal court review of commercial matters over which Ohio enjoys wide regulatory latitude; their suit does not involve any fundamental right or classification that attracts heightened judicial scrutiny. Second, while respondents portray themselves as third-party challengers to an allegedly unconstitutional tax scheme, they are in fact seeking federal court aid in an endeavor to improve their competitive position. Third, the Ohio courts are better positioned than their federal counterparts to correct any violation because they are more familiar with state legislative preferences and because the TIA does not constrain their remedial options. Individually, these considerations may not compel forbearance on the part of federal district courts; in combination, however, they demand deference to the state adjudicative process.

The ruling stemmed from discriminatory tax practices in Ohio where Commerce Energy, a California-based retail natural gas supplier, was required to pay additional taxes from which local distribution companies were exempt. Commerce alleged that the local companies benefit from discriminatory tax exemptions because it gave them a competitive advantage over retail suppliers. Under Ohio law, Commerce must pay local distributors a fee to use their pipelines and must pay three different taxes on the natural gas services they
provide.

There is good reason to require an accused who wants to invoke his or her right to remain silent to do so unambiguously. A requirement of an unambiguous invocation of Miranda rights results in an objective inquiry that avoid[s] difficulties of proof and ... provide[s] guidance to officers on how to proceed in the face of ambiguity. If an ambiguous act, omission, or statement could require police to end the interrogation, police would be required to make difficult decisions about an accused unclear intent and face the consequence of suppression if they guess wrong. Suppression of a voluntary confession in these circumstances would place a significant burden on society interest in prosecuting criminal activity.

In 1966, the court held in Miranda v. Arizona [opinion text] that "[i]f the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease." The present case arose after Van Chester Thompkins was arrested and questioned for nearly three hours, but remained substantively silent during the questioning. He confessed to the murder after officers began speaking with him about religion. The respondent was convicted of murder at a jury trial, but the Sixth Circuit overturned the conviction when he appealed seeking habeas corpus relief on the basis that his Fifth Amendment [text] rights had been violated.

The court agreed to hear the case [JURIST report] in order to reconcile a split in the reading of the statute between the Seventh and Tenth Circuit Courts. The court was also asked to address the ex post facto [US Constitution Article I § 3] nature of the statute, but found it unnecessary to do so in this case.

The immunity of officials simply was not the particular problem to which Congress was responding when it enacted the FSIA. The FSIA was adopted, rather, to address "a modern world where foreign state enterprises are every day participants in commercial activities," and to assure litigants that decisions regarding claims against states and their enterprises "are made on purely legal grounds."

Respondents are seeking damages from petitioner Mohamed Ali Samantar under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 [28 USC § 1350 text]. Samantar was minister of defense and later prime minister of Somalia from 1980 to 1990. Respondents claim that Samantar authorized torture and the extrajudicial killing of them and members of their family. Respondents are members of the Isaaq clan, a group that was subject to systematic persecution during Samantar's time in office before the collapse of the Somali government in 1991 [State Department backgrounder]. Samantar fled Somalia before the collapse of the government and now resides in Virginia.

The Gaza naval blockade began in 2007 [Montreal Gazette backgrounder] after Hamas [CFR backgrounder], designated as a terrorist organization [text] by the US State Department, was elected [JURIST report] as the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority. In January 2008, then-UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Louise Arbour condemned the blockade [JURIST report], saying that it was collective punishment.

Also Tuesday, the court released an order in McComish v. Bennett [order, PDF], refusing to vacate a Ninth Circuit opinion upholding an Arizona campaign finance provision, but the Supreme Court will allow the parties to renew the application in the case if they indicate that they intend to file a timely petition for certiorari. The Arizona law under review is a "matching funds" provision of the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Act [official website], which allows Arizona to provide public financing to candidates for state political offices. A candidate who chooses to participate in the act's voluntary public financing scheme relinquishes her or his right to raise private campaign contributions.

The dispute centers on an agreement, entered into by eight southern states in 1986, for the disposal of the region's low-level radioactive waste. Under the agreement, North Carolina was selected to construct a facility for waste disposal and received financial assistance to that end. However, North Carolina did not obtain a license for the facility and subsequently withdrew from the compact. The four remaining states that are still parties to the agreement brought suit against North Carolina in the Supreme Court seeking enforcement of monetary sanctions.

The old era of impunity is over. In its place, slowly but surely, we are witnessing the birth of a new Age of Accountability. There is no going back. In this new age of accountability, those who commit the worst of human crimes will be held responsible. Whether they are rank-and-file foot soldiers or military commanders, whether they are lowly civil servants following orders, or top political leaders, they will be held accountable. ... [I]f the ICC is to have the reach it should possess, if it is to become an effective deterrent as well as an avenue of justice, it must have universal support. Only then will perpetrators have no place to hide. No government or justice system that is complicit in international crimes can any longer shield the perpetrators from justice.

Last week, a collection of African civil society organizations urged greater cooperation [JURIST report] between the ICC and African nations during the review conference. The group of 124 organizations called on African governments to enhance their cooperation with the court and to make greater efforts in the execution of outstanding warrants. The declaration also urged member states to improve their national judicial systems in order to maintain the court's status as one of last resort, and called on states that had not ratified the Rome Statute to do so. In May, the ICC sent a delegation [JURIST report] from the Office of the Prosecutor to Guinea to further investigate the killing of more than 150 pro-democracy protesters [BBC backgrounder] in Conakry in September 2009. In March, Moreno-Ocampo submitted [JURIST report] to ICC judges the names of 20 senior political and business leaders who "bear the gravest responsibility" for the deadly violence perpetrated after Kenya's 2007 presidential election [JURIST news archive]. In March 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant [JURIST report] for Sudanese head of state Omar al-Bashir [ICC materials, PDF; JURIST news archive], charging him with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but declining to charge him with genocide. The warrant was rejected [BBC report] by Bashir, and strongly denounced [Reuters report] by the chairman of the African Union (AU) [official website], Muammar al-Gaddafi [BBC profile]. Gaddafi described the warrant as a form of terrorism and raised the possibility of the withdrawal of African member states in protest.

Zhao's claims of torture are not the first to be made against the Chinese government. Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] drew international attention in September 2007 when he wrote a letter [JURIST report] to the US Congress requesting assistance in improving human rights in China. Gao, who has also defended Christians and coal miners in China, claimed that he was tortured after being arrested earlier that year. He was originally part of the Chinese Communist Party and handled prominent cases involving the outlawed Falun Gong movement [Falun Dafa website], but fell into disfavor with the government in 2006 when he was convicted of subversion [JURIST report] and placed under house arrest. Gao had been most recently detained since February 2009.

Earlier this month, Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) [official website] announced that the partial recount of the parliamentary elections would not alter seat allocations [JURIST reports] awarded in accordance with the provisional results. The commission held that the original count showed no signs of fraud [JURIST report] or major irregularities, and confirmed the two-seat lead of the the Iraqiya coalition over State of Law. The commission took 11 days to recount more than 2.5 million ballots by hand after Maliki challenged the results [JURIST report] alleging voting fraud at the polls.The IHEC ordered a manual recount of the Baghdad ballots in April but did not begin the recount [JURIST reports] until the review panel defined more precisely what a recount entailed. One day after the IHEC's announcement, the appeals court for Iraq's Justice and Accountability Commission overturned a ban [JURIST report] on nine newly elected members of parliament accused of having ties to the banned Baath Party [BBC backgrounder].The ad hoc commission was created to eliminate Iraqi officials with potential connections to regime of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive], who led the Baath party during his presidency. Eight of the banned candidates were members of the Sunni-backed coalition Iraqiya.The ban by the commission, which is made up predominantly of Shiites, was perceived as a tactic by the Shiite bloc to garner seats from Iraqiya in order to gain the plurality for Maliki's State of Law coalition.