Karzai has responded to Western pressure by pledging to reduce corruption in his administration. In July, his cabinet approved a bill [JURIST report] that would allow high-ranking government officials to be tried for corruption. US President Barack Obama has made curbing corruption in the Afghan government a point of emphasis in his administration's foreign policy. In March, during a surprise visit to the country, Obama urged the government to reduce corruption [JURIST report] and institute an effective judicial system. Obama called on Karzai to take steps to promote good governance [CBS/AP report], end cronyism and curtail the opium trade. Last November, Karzai pledged to fight corruption [JURIST report] in his government during his inaugural address [text, PDF]. In his speech, Karzai announced that he would organize a conference to research the sources of the corruption and bribery and find ways to combat it.

The government is targeting an American citizen for death without any legal process whatsoever, while at the same time impeding lawyers from challenging that death sentence and the government's sweeping claim of authority to issue it. This is a dual blow to some of our most precious liberties, and such an alarming denial of rights in any one case endangers the rights of all Americans. Attorneys shouldn't have to ask the government for permission in order to challenge the constitutionality of the government's conduct.

In March, the ACLU filed suit seeking information [JURIST report] related to the US government's use of unmanned Predator drones, seeking to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text] request [text, PDF] made in January. The ACLU alleges that the unmanned warplanes have been used by the military and CIA for killings in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and cites troubling reports indicating that US citizens may be targeted and killed by Predator drones. The FOIA request asks "when, where and against whom drone strikes can be authorized," as well as for information related to civilian casualties. In October, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston [official website] noted that the use of unmanned warplanes by the US to carry out attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan may be illegal [JURIST report].

The bill was introduced in the Senate by Dick Durbin (D-IL) [official websites] and was passed in March, less than a week after the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the bill [JURIST reports]. Last year, the House Judiciary Committee voted 16-9 to approve a bill [JURIST report] that would have completely eliminated the sentencing disparity between the offenses. In April 2008, a study released by the US Sentencing Commission (USSC) [official website] reported that more than 3,000 prison inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses had their sentences reduced [JURIST report] under an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines [materials]. In 2007, the USSC voted unanimously [JURIST report] to give retroactive effect to an earlier sentencing guideline amendment that reduced crack cocaine penalties.

Financial crises are, at their core, caused by excess leverage .... Part of what made this crisis so severe was that capital requirements failed to keep up with risks and failed to force firms to prepare for the possibility of a very severe recession ... This mistake was made worse by the fact that we allowed a large parallel financial system — composed of investment banks, consumer finance companies, and firms like AIG — to grow up alongside the regulated banking system. In that parallel system, firms were allowed to operate with very thin capital cushions and to finance their activities with short-term, unstable sources of funding.

The House and Senate reconciled their versions of the bill [JURIST report] last month but were forced to re-open negotiations, eventually removing a $17.9 billion tax on large financial institutions that was meant to cover the bill's costs. The Senate approved its version of the bill in May, after the House passed its version [JURIST reports] in December. The Senate Banking Committe [official website] proposed a bill [text, PDF; JURIST report] in 2009 that was met with resistance and resulted in the committee's development of the bill ultimately passed by the Senate. One provision in the bill that has been the source of much debate is the creation of a consumer protection agency. The House Financial Services Committee [official website] had approved a bill to create the agency in October, after originally delaying [JURIST reports] it at the behest of financial industry leaders in July 2009. The creation of the agency is a key step in achieving the Obama administration's stated goal of tightening financial industry regulations. Last June, the administration proposed a broad series of regulatory reforms [press release; JURIST report] aimed at restoring confidence in the US financial system.

On Monday, the court also sentenced former Baath Party official Abdul Ghani Abdul Ghafoor to life in prison for the repression of Iraqi Shiite Muslims in 1991, and dropped charges against Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan, Hussein's half-brother, for lack of evidence. Former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim also received 15 years in prison. In May, the appeals court for Iraq's Justice and Accountability Commission overturned a ban on nine newly elected members of parliament accused of having ties to the banned Baath Party. The ad hoc commission was created to eliminate Iraqi officials with potential connections to the regime, which the new government has been working to move away from since taking power.

The Catholic hierarchy plays a completely inappropriate role opposing any changes to existing laws on abortion and family planning and, as we see from this important report, women die as a result. In our work in the Philippines, we have seen and heard from Catholics who reject the influence of the bishops and support access to more comprehensive reproductive health services. It's time to break the silence around abortion in the Philippines and for the human rights community to put pressure on the government to decriminalize abortion and immediately improve the medical care that women receive.

Other human rights groups have criticized the restrictive abortion laws in Catholic-majority countries. In January, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] argued that Ireland's restrictive abortion laws increase health risks to women [JURIST report] and expose them to deliberate misinformation about abortion procedures. Ireland's current legislation prohibits abortion for any reason except when the mother's life is threatened and carries a potential sentence of life imprisonment. The report states that Ireland's restrictive laws create a heavy financial and emotional burden on women who are forced to find alternatives either secretly or abroad. In July 2009, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] called on Nicaragua to end its total ban on abortions [JURIST report], saying that the lack of an exception for the mother's health has caused numerous deaths. AI also called for the country to eliminate severe criminal punishments for those who seek or perform abortions, saying that the penalties would often prevent women from receiving even non-abortion medical care. It also called for an exception allowing abortions in the cases of rape or incest. The group said that ban forces obstetricians to choose between medically necessary procedures and the law, and that it violates the UN Convention Against Torture, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [texts] and other treaties signed by the country.

While the IFP welcomes today's sentencing, we believe that Mr Selebi's sentence is too lenient and he deserved a lengthier jail term. He was not only an embarrassment to the SAPS but to the country's image abroad because of his involvement with Interpol. The IFP is pleased that today's sentencing will repair some of the damage inflicted on the SAPS's public image by its former police chief. Moreover, we hope that the sentence will send out a clear message to all police officers and corrupt officials that corruption will not be tolerated and that no one is above the law, not even those with powerful political connections.

Selebi pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] at the beginning of his trial in October, claiming that the charges against him were fabricated in retaliation for his corruption investigation of two members of the South African National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) [official website]. The court rejected Selebi's defense of a conspiracy against him and found him guilty of granting favors to Agliotti in exchange for money and gifts totaling USD $156,000. A spokesperson for the ruling African National Congress [party website] party praised the South African judicial system [press release], stating that Selebi's conviction "clearly indicates that South Africa as a country is governed by laws that are applied without any fear or favour to anyone, regardless of their standing." Selebi was suspended from his police post and forced to resign as INTERPOL president after the NPA announced the impending charges [JURIST reports]. The NPA has alleged that Selebi ignored Agliotti's drug trafficking and warned Agliotti that he had been identified in a murder investigation.

The ICTR continues to indict suspects for crimes occurring during the 1994 Rwandan conflict between Hutus and Tutsis in which approximately 800,000 people, primarily Tutsis, died. Last month, Rwandan pastor Jean-Bosco Uwinkindi [Hague Justice profile; case materials] pled not guilty [JURIST report] to multiple similar genocide charges before the ICTR. Last October, Ugandan officials apprehended [JURIST report] another highly-sought suspect, former Hutu intelligence chief Idelphonse Nizeyimana [BBC profile; case materials]. Nizeyimana, who pled not guilty [JURIST report] to four genocide counts [indictment, PDF], still awaits trial. Nizeyimana was one of four twop accused sought by the ICTR in order to complete its mission. In June, UN Security Council [official website] extended the terms [press release] of ICTR trial judges to December 31, 2011, and appellate judges to December 31, 2012. In March 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon pledged his ongoing support [JURIST report] for the ICTR and stressed that the international community must continue to combat genocide.

Most importantly for present purposes, section 31 prohibits race- and gender-conscious programs the federal equal protection clause permits but does not require. ... [S]ection 31 categorically prohibits discrimination and preferential treatment. ... Section 31 poses no obstacle ... to race- or gender-conscious measures required by federal law or the federal Constitution. ... [T]he [Equal Protection] clause renders racial classifications presumptively invalid, regardless of purported motivation, and tolerates them only when narrowly tailored to serve compelling governmental interests. Section 31 is consistent with equal protection, under this analysis, because "[a] law that prohibits the State from classifying individuals by race or gender a fortiori does not classify individuals by race or gender," and because the federal Constitution does not oblige the state to permit racial classifications the federal Constitution itself does not require. "That the Constitution permits the rare race-based or gender-based preference hardly implies that the state cannot ban them altogether."

In April 2009, California Attorney General Edmond Brown [official website] argued in a letter to the court [JURIST report] that portions of Proposition 209 may violate the US Constitution. Brown sent the letter regarding the case decided on Monday, Coral Construction v. City and County of San Francisco [case materials]. The city policy had been struck down [JURIST report] by the San Francisco Superior Court [official website] in 2004 as being in violation of Proposition 209. In his letter, Brown said portions of the amendment may be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause, "creat[ing] an unequal political structure based on race and gender that is not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest[,] ... accomplish[ing] the very evil it purported to eliminate, viz. racial and gender discrimination."

Michigan's leak comes just months after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill [BBC backgrounder, JURIST news archive], where more than 120 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the Exxon Valdez oil spill [JURIST news archive] as the worst in US history. In July, a lawsuit [JURIST report] was filed against BP in a Louisiana state court alleging that the company's negligent actions led to the oil spill and that BP was also negligent in its handling of the cleanup. Also in July, a federal judge refused to reinstate [JURIST report] a six-month drilling moratorium [JURIST report] issued in May by the Obama administration. The Obama administration has since issued a new drilling moratorium [JURIST report] affecting only specific types of drilling equipment, which is also being challenged in federal court. The BP spill has prompted international inquiries into drilling regulations. Earlier in July, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger [official website] indicated that the EU would consider limiting the depth [JURIST report] of offshore deepwater oil drilling [JURIST news archive] or placing a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling. In June, the UK announced that the government will increase inspection [JURIST report] of North Sea oil rigs and monitoring of offshore compliance and safety standards. The UK government also established the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Advisory Group [official website] to conduct a review of the country's ability to prevent and respond to oil spills.