The BiH war crimes court was established in 2005 to reduce the caseload of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website]. In December, the court convicted four former Bosnian Serb policemen [JURIST report] of killing at least 150 civilians during the 1992-1995 Bosnian civil war [JURIST news archive]. In November, suspected war criminal, Dragan Crnogorac, was arrested [JURIST report] on suspicion for having committed genocide in connection with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre [JURIST news archive] during the end of the Bosnian civil war. In August, Spanish officials extradited accused Montenegrin war criminal [JURIST report] Veselin Vlahovic, known as the "monster of Grbavica," to Sarajevo.

Last January, a fedearl jury in New York found Vivendi liable on 57 counts of violating US federal securities laws [JURIST report] but exonerated Messier. Messier testified that the fall in stock price was not due to securities fraud but because of the economic climate. In 2004, the French stock market regulator fined Messier [Expatica report] one million euros, which was later reduced by an appeals court to 500,00 euros. In 2003, Vivendi paid a $50 million fine to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) [official website] to settle the complaint. Messier paid a $1 million fine and agreed to give up his claim to a 20 million euro severance payment. Vivendi had previously sued Messier [JURIST report] to recover the severance payment, claiming that board members had been coerced by Messier into signing off on the payment, but later withdrew its lawsuit as part of the settlement with the SEC.

In October, the court first heard arguments in the Ghailani trial [JURIST report], the first civilian trial of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee. An attorney for Ghailani argued during the opening statements that al Qaeda [JURIST news archive] took advantage of Ghailani's youth and that Ghailani was unaware of the terrorists' criminal plans. In July, Kaplan refused to dismiss charges [JURIST report] against Ghailani ruling that his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was not violated. Ghailani's lawyers sought a dismissal of charges, arguing that he was denied the right to a speedy trial [JURIST reports] while being detained for nearly five years in CIA secret prisons and later at Guantanamo Bay. Earlier in July, Kaplan ruled that Ghailani was not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and was therefore fit to stand trial [JURIST report].

In September, the War Crimes Department of the Higher Court in Belgrade sentenced [JURIST report; press release, PDF] former paramilitary officer Zeljko Djukic to 20 years in prison for his involvement in the deaths of 14 civilians in March 1999 during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war. Djukic, a member of the Serbian paramilitary group known as Scorpion [JURIST news archive], was originally convicted [JURIST report] of the murders in June 2009. The conviction was overturned [JURIST report] earlier this year by a Serbian appeals court. The appeals court demanded a retrial for Djukic because the original verdict was based exclusively on testimony of a protected witness, which is against the Serbian Criminal Procedure Code [text, PDF].

Naseer is unlikely to face extradition until the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] rules on a similar series of extradition cases that are currently before the court. In July, the ECHR stayed the extradition of four terrorism suspects [JURIST report] from the UK to the US, holding that potential punishment could violate Human Rights Convention [text] provisions on the prohibition of torture and inhumane or degrading treatment. The suspects include British citizens Haroon Rashid Aswat, Seyla Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad [advocacy website; BBC profile] and Egyptian-born radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri [BBC profile; JURIST news archive]. All four men are wanted in the US on terrorism charges. The UK High Court approved the extradition of Aswat and Ahmad to the US in 2006, while the extradition of Hamza was approved [JURIST reports] by a British court in 2007. The ECHR is reconsidering the evidence [Telegraph report] against the men and trying to determine if the US sentencing standards would lead to an Article 3 violation of the suspects' human rights.

The Mexican authorities need to ascertain whether or not any state officials, including those working for the state-owned train operator, were complicit with the criminal organization that carried out the abductions and extortion, both in this and other cases.

The human rights environment in Mexico has deteriorated significantly over the past decade, as the Mexican Drug War [LAT backgrounder] has increased in severity. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) set up an office in Mexico in 2002 and since that time has released numerous reports [OHCHR database] documenting Mexico's struggle in the areas of education, rights of indigenous people and immigrant rights. While Mexico has condemned [JURIST report] Arizona's attempts to curb immigration into the US through the controversial SB 1070 [bill materials; JURIST news archive], activists believe that Mexican immigration laws are even more restrictive [UPI report], and that immigrants to Mexico routinely face abuse and harassment [AI report, PDF].

In September, US lawmakers introduced a bill [press release, PDF] that would prohibit the US State Department (DOS) [official website] from issuing visas to individuals, or their family members, connected to the death of Magnitsky. In addition to the visa restrictions [JURIST report], the bill would also prohibit the transaction of property or finances through US financial institutions by officials implicated in Magnitsky's death. Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) [official website], who introduced the bill, said it was necessary for the US to take action because the Russian judicial system had failed to hold anyone accountable for Magnitsky's death. Cardin noted the bill's importance in protecting US business interests abroad and sending "a strong message to those who are currently acting with impunity in Russia that there will be consequences for corruption should you wish to travel and invest abroad." Cardin originally urged the DOS to take action on the visas in a letter [text, PDF] he submitted in April to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In addition to the letter, Cardin provided a list of 60 senior officials [text, PDF] in the Russian government and their connection to the death of Magnitsky.

The FCC has long been trying to exert more control over Internet regulation. Last year, US Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) [official website] introduced legislation [text, PDF; JURIST report] intended to block the FCC from implementing its National Broadband Plan [official website; materials]. The Freedom for Consumer Choice Act would remove the FCC's ability to declare the actions of a communications provider illegal unless there was a clear showing that the practice causes harm to consumers and will not be corrected by market forces. A month earlier, the FCC opened a new proceeding [JURIST report] to identify the legal approach that will best support its efforts to develop universal access to "high quality" Internet broadband services. A previous court ruling [JURIST report] found that the FCC lacks the power to enforce net neutrality. Net neutrality is thought by supporters to be essential to the goal of an open flow of information over the Internet regardless of the amount of revenue generated by the information.