Last month, the UK Parliament [official website]approved [JURIST report] the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act [materials], which makes it more difficult for ordinary citizens to obtain arrest warrants for suspected war criminals present in the UK. The controversial act [AP report] removes the exclusive power of granting arrest warrants from local magistrates, requiring that all such warrants receive approval from the DPP. Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke of the UK Ministry of Justice said [press release] about the bill, "[w]e are clear about our international obligations and these new changes to existing law will ensure the balance is struck between ensuring those who are accused of such heinous crimes do not escape justice and that universal jurisdiction cases are only proceeded with on the basis of solid evidence that is likely to lead to a successful prosecution." The amendment is seen as a move by the UK government to improve relations with foreign countries such as China and Israel.

H.B. 56 creates a panoply of new state offenses that criminalize, among other things, an alien's failure to comply with federal registration requirements that were enacted pursuant to Congress's exclusive power to regulate immigration, an alien's attempt to solicit or perform work, and an alien's attempt to interact with state or local government. The law also invites discrimination against many foreign-born citizens and lawfully present aliens, including legal residents, by making it a crime for any landlord to rent housing to an unlawfully present alien, invalidating all contracts with unlawfully present aliens, and even targeting school-age children with an alien registration system.

The DOJ, joined by several rights groups, appeared before the court in August [JURIST report] to make arguments against the law's enactment, at which point Chief Justice Sharon Lovelace Blackburn issued the temporary injunction to forestall enactment of the challenged provisions while she evaluated their contention with federal statute. Religious groups and representatives of several rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) [advocacy websites] have stated that the Alabama law is the most extreme of the recent state anti-immigration laws influenced by controversial Arizona SB 1070 [JURIST news archive]. From when the legislation was signed into law [JURIST reports] in June, 16 countries filed briefs [JURIST report] in the Alabama district court against the controversial law, arguing that it provides unfair treatment to citizens of those countries currently residing in Alabama and sanctions discriminatory treatment based on ethnicity.

Despite her work in the area of women's rights, Sirleaf has become a controversial figure in African politics. Unemployment in Liberia is still at 80 percent [Al Jazeera report], and political opponents have accused her of using government money to fund her campaign, which she denies. Further, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Libera [official website] recommended in 2009 that Sirleaf be subject to sanctions and a 30-year ban on holding public office [JURIST report] for providing financial support to former Liberian president Charles Taylor [BBS profile]. Sirleaf was one of 50 individuals named in the report. Jagland stated that Karman was awarded one-third of the prize in order to associate some of the money with the uprisings sweeping through the Arab world, called the Arab Spring. Karman strongly opposes Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh [official website, in Arabic; JURIST news archive], but has controversial ties to Islah [Project Yemen backgrounder], a party whose chief member is Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, a former adviser to Osama bin-Laden [JURIST news archive].

In my opinion, contrary to plaintiff's view, the CIA's new protocols would have a remedial and deterrent effect should a CIA official think to destroy documents. The protocols should lead to better communication and more complete written records within the Agency and across the government when an issue of document destruction or retention arises within the Agency. The CIA's new protocols should lead to greater accountability within the Agency and prevent another episode like the videotapes' destruction.

In January, Hellerstein told the CIA that it must investigate the destruction of the interrogation tapes [JURIST report] and prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. Internal CIA documents [part 1, PDF; part 2, PDF; part 3, PDF] released last year reveal that the former head of the agency Porter Goss may have agreed to the destruction [JURIST report] of the interrogation videotapes [JURIST news archive]. According to redacted documents [text, PDF] filed in March 2009, 12 of 92 videotapes destroyed by the CIA [JURIST report] contained evidence of "enhanced interrogation techniques." The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] had acknowledged [letter, PDF; JURIST report] in March 2009 that the CIA destroyed 92 videotapes of high value terrorism suspect interrogations, in response to an August 2008 judicial order [text, PDF] that the CIA turn over information regarding the tapes or provide specific justifications on why it could not release the information. The August 2008 order came in response to a December 2007 ACLU motion [text, PDF] that the CIA be held in contempt of court for not providing information on the tapes during a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text] lawsuit [ACLU materials] brought by the organization in an effort to access government materials on the interrogations.

While the Court is sympathetic to the plaintiffs' concern that the appeals will delay the administration and distribution of the settlement to so many people who have waited so long for justice, that does not translate into a willingness by this Court to quietly overlook the misleading case citations and unsupported legal argument throughout the plaintiffs' motions and reply brief. In several instances the plaintiffs make sweeping statements in their motions asserting that either the D.C. Circuit or this Court has established "practices" or follows certain legal principles but fail to cite any persuasive authority to back this up, and in other instances the plaintiffs cite no cases or cases that do not support the proposition asserted.

Congress established the Indian trust in 1887 to hold proceeds from government-arranged leases of Indian lands. The suit has been underway for 15 years, with a federal judge approving of the most expensive class-action settlement against the US government ever approved. In October 2010, Hogan extended the deadline [JURIST report] for Congress to approve the $3.4 billion settlement concerning the US government's alleged mismanagement of funds [DOI materials] held in trust for American Indian landowners. In April 2010, US district court judge James Robertson also granted Congress additional time [JURIST report] to consider the settlement. In July 2009, the district court ordered [JURIST report] the US Department of Interior [official website] to provide an accounting of the trust to the court. In 2008, Robertson rejected plaintiffs' claims that the government had engaged in fraud, but held [JURIST reports] that the DOI "unreasonably delayed" the accounting of billions of dollars of American Indian money. The case went to trial in June 2008, after the plaintiffs rejected [JURIST reports] a 2007 settlement proposal from the government.

In June 2010, the UNODC released a report [JURIST report] detailing the globalization of organized crime and its threat to international security. The report specifically addressed the global economic impact of human and drug trafficking, sale of illicit firearms, piracy, identity theft and the illegal exploitation of natural resources. The head of the UNODC announced the findings and warned of possible implications including the use of weapons and violence to buy elections, politicians and power. The report echoed warnings issued by the UNODC [JURIST report] in May 2010, stating that the inadequacies of the current international crime control system are allowing organized crime organizations to gain economic strength.

Unable to close Guantanamo due to resistance in Congress, the Obama administration has revamped its approach. Earlier this week, retired Vice Admiral Bruce MacDonald [official profile] notified lawyers in the trial of five Guantanamo detainees that he will be accepting recommendations until early 2012 on whether the trial should move forward as a death penalty case, ensuring that the case will not go to trial at the naval base until sometime next year [JURIST report]. In June, the US Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] announced the appointment [JURIST report] of Martins as the new chief war crimes prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay as head of the Office of Military Commissions. Martins, who was serving in Afghanistan as the commander of the Rule of Law Field Force at the time, is a graduate of Harvard Law and former Rhodes Scholar. In April 2010, the DOD released a manual [text, PDF; JURIST report] for military commission procedures under the Military Commissions Act of 2009 [text, PDF]. The manual established the rules of evidence and procedure for the commissions, allowing for the admission of certain hearsay evidence and defining "material support" for terrorism. The release came a month after then Defense Secretary Robert Gates appointed [JURIST report] MacDonald as the convening authority for military commissions. The position oversees military commissions themselves as well as the Office of Military Commissions and, notably, has the power to review and approve charges against "belligerents" pursuant to the Military Commissions Act.

Sri Lanka has come under international criticism for allegations of human rights violations. Last month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [official profile; JURIST news archive] sent a report [JURIST report] to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] accusing Sri Lankan troops of killing tens of thousands of civilians during clashes with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) [JURIST news archive] in 2009. In April, a UN panel of experts on Sri Lanka found credible allegations of war crimes [JURIST report] committed during the country's war with the LTTE, warranting further investigation. In December, the Sri Lankan Ministry of External Affairs [official website] announced that the UN panel would be allowed to visit [JURIST report] the island to look into alleged war crimes. The decision signaled a reversal after months of strong opposition [JURIST report] from the Sri Lankan government, which described the UN panel as an infringement of Sri Lanka's sovereignty. President Mahinda Rajapaksa [official profile] appointed his own Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) to investigate the final years of the conflict from the ceasefire in 2002 to its conclusion in 2009. Despite having its credibility contested by several human rights organizations, the LLRC began public hearings [JURIST report] in August 2010 with an appearance by Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa [official profile], who defended the actions of the government [JURIST report] during the conflict. The government has repeatedly denied accusations that its forces violated international law during the conflict.

The Ocampo Six include several high-ranking members of Kenya's government, the head of operations at Kass FM [official website] in Nairobi and the son of Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta [Africa Within backgrounder]. Three of the men are members of the ODM and the other three are members of the opposing party, the PNU. The ODM suspects are charged with fomenting violence against PNU supporters following the 2007 elections because they believed the election of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki [official profile], the PNU candidate, to be rigged. In response, the PNU suspects are charged with the conspiring with the Mungiki to attack members of the ODM party. Kenya officially appealed the ICC's decision to exercise jurisdiction [JURIST report] over the cases in June after originally requesting that the ICC dismiss the case [JURIST report] in April. Also in April, lawyers for the Ocampo Six called for the timely release of evidence [JURIST report] against their clients while the prosecution argued that it was necessary to partially redact portions of the evidence in order to protect witnesses from intimidation. The ICC summoned the suspects [JURIST report] after determining that the Kenyan government was unwilling to charge them for their alleged crimes.