the Court finds that Doe's as-applied challenge cannot meet the threshold required to obtain an as-applied exemption to the PRA in this case. Doe's claim would also fail under the standards—if considered distinguishable from the applicable standards discussed above—articulated by a majority of the concurring Justices in the Supreme Court's opinion in Doe.

In June 2010, the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] 8-1 in Doe #1 v. Reed [Cornell LII backgrounder] that the First Amendment [text] does not bar a state from releasing identifying information about petitioner signers where there is a sufficiently compelling state interest. The case arose over an order to publish the names of those who signed a Washington state petition to overturn a state law [JURIST report] giving same-sex partners the same rights as married partners. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF] that the names should be released, but the Supreme Court issued a temporary stay [JURIST report] in October 2009.

Last week, rights groups urged the UN [JURIST report] to assure that Cambodia will not interfere in a tribunal established by the UN charged with investigating the communist Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. The pressure for UN action results from the resignation of Siegfried Blunk [JURIST report], one of the judges for the ECCC, who blamed political interference for his decision. In September, the ECCC ordered the trials of four alleged Khmer Rouge leaders be split into a series of smaller trials [JURIST report]. The ECCC said that the separation of trials will allow the tribunal to deliberate more quickly in the case against the four elderly defendants.

An invention must be excluded from patentability where the application of the technical process for which the patent is filed necessitates the prior destruction of human embryos or their use as base material, even if the description of that process does not contain any reference to the use of human embryos. ... The exception to the non-patentability of uses of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes concerns only inventions for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes which are applied to the human embryo and are useful to it.

Stem cell research is also a controversial topic in the US. In July, the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] dismissed an appeal [JURIST report] attempting to overturn April's decision that ended an injunction [JURIST reports] on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. In 2009, President Barack Obama [official website] signed an executive order [JURIST report] which removed the previous administration's eight-year restriction on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. After a preliminary injunction on stem research was granted last year, the Obama administration appealed [JURIST report] the injunction, arguing that the ruling was overbroad, endangering an array of research across multiple programs and centers while only serving a very attenuated economic interest of the plaintiffs in the case. While the appeals process was underway, the court granted a long-term stay which allowed federal funding to continue [JURIST report] while the court reached a decision.

The bill became law in July when the North Carolina Senate and House of Representatives [JURIST reports] voted to override a veto by Governor Beverly Perdue [official website]. North Carolina is one of several state legislatures to have acted recently to limit abortion rights. Both Texas and Florida [JURIST reports] have recently passed bills requiring ultrasounds before abortions. In June, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit challenging the Texas law [JURIST report]. In March, South Dakota passed a law requiring a three-day waiting period [JURIST report] before an abortion; the longest waiting period requirement in the country. That law is also facing a court challenge [JURIST report]. Multiple states have acted to ban abortions after 20 weeks, when some studies suggest a fetus can begin feeling pain, including Missouri, Indiana, Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kansas and Idaho [JURIST reports].

The release of Shalit has been a point of contention in the already tense relations between the Israeli government and Hamas. In April, Israel called for the UN to retract the Goldstone Report [JURIST report], which accused Israel of war crimes, following statements made by Richard Goldstone in a Washington Post op-ed [text] indicating that the fact finding mission underlying the report may have been flawed. The report accused Palestinian fighters of mistreating Shalit in violation of the Third Geneva Convention [text]. In June 2010, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] urged Hamas [JURIST report] authorities to allow Shalit to communicate with his family and receive visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [official website]. In February 2008, a tentative agreement for the release of Shalit was hindered by disagreements [JURIST report] over the identity of the Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange. Shalit was captured by Palestinian militants in 2006 during a raid on an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) [official website] post near the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel.

Last year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] called for a renewed international commitment to eradicate all forms of slavery [JURIST report]. Ban's comments took place on the International Day of Remembrance of Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade [press release], which is held annually pursuant to General Assembly resolution A/62/L.32 [text, PDF]. In his statement, Ban said that the fight against slavery continues even though the practice may now take different forms than it has in the past. Also last year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] urged Lebanon to improve its judicial system [JURIST report] by providing mechanisms to better protect the basic rights of domestic workers [press release] and more ardently prosecuting those who violate them. In June, JURIST guest columnist and head of Student Commentary Megan McKee argued that Lebanon must do more to protect the rights of migrant workers [JURIST Dateline report] in that country.

The indictment was unsealed in August, and the STL president has made a public plea for the four men to turn themselves in [JURIST reports]. In 2007, the UN Security Council approved [UN News Centre report] a resolution to establish an ad hoc international tribunal to investigate and try suspects in the February 2005 assassination of Hariri. The move passed in a 10-0 vote, with China, Russia, Indonesia, Qatar and South Africa abstaining. The abstaining nations objected in part to the resolution's establishment under Chapter VII of the UN Charter [text], which allows for military enforcement if necessary. The controversial proposal, supported by then Lebanese prime minister Fuad Siniora but opposed [JURIST comment] by pro-Syrian former president Emile Lahoud [JURIST news archive], was a source of major disagreement in Lebanon's deeply sectarian political arena.