While accepting that international law is the proper authority to define human rights violations, the petitioners, Nigerian plaintiffs suing foreign-based oil companies, argued last week that domestic US common law should fill in the blank in ATS over who could actually be sued for such atrocities. The US government sided with the petitioners, with Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler providing the additional argument that international law does not independently foreclose foreign corporate liability the way that it immunizes a foreign government from liability for official wrongdoings. The respondent oil companies argued that international law is wholly controlling in such a situation and that domestic US common law has no bearing on the proceedings. Respondents pressed the fact that not only does international law not recognize corporate responsibility for the alleged offenses, but the world community has never recognized corporate liability for the misdeeds of individuals: "No other nation in the world permits its court to exercise universal civil jurisdiction over alleged extraterritorial human rights abuses to which the nation has no connection." While the issue in the case was supposed to focus on "the narrow issue of whether a corporation can ever be held liable for violating fundamental human rights norms under the Alien Tort Statute," the court frequently pushed petitioners on the specific point of whether Congress intended ATS to permit suits by aliens against aliens for overseas acts.

In September 2010, the Icelandic Parliament [official website, in Icelandic] referred charges to the Landsdomur, a special court to try cabinet ministers, after the Special Investigation Committee (SIC) [official website] released a "Truth Report" [report, PDF] claiming that seven Icelandic government officials acted with gross negligence in their management of the country's financial system prior to a 2008 bank collapse. The SIC determined that Haarde and former central bank head David Oddsson [official profile, in Icelandic] knew that banks were assuming overseas debt but took no action to prevent or mitigate the effects of the accumulation. The SIC also found that former minister of finance Arni Mathiessen, then-banking minister Bjorgvin Sigurdsson, former Financial Services Authority [official website] director Jonas Jonsson and central bank officials Eirikur Gundason and Ingimundur Fridriksson failed to take appropriate action when presented with information about the poor state of the country's financial sector. Iceland was hit hard [BBC backgrounder] by the financial crisis that emanated from securities related to the US mortgage market. When Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir [corporate websites] were taken over by the Icelandic government in 2008, they were holding debt equal to more than 900 percent [AFP report] of Iceland's gross domestic product, causing the country's economy to collapse and the government to rely on loans [IMF materials] from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [official website] to meet its obligations.

Preliminary hearings [JURIST report] for Hekmati began in late December. Leading evidence against Hekmati included the confession made on Iranian state television [Naharnet report] where he admitted his mission was to infiltrate Iran's intelligence systems by initially offering information to gain their trust and in order to find evidence that Iran was involved in terrorist activity [CNN report]. Hekmati told the court that he was fooled by the CIA and did not want to hurt Iran, according to a Fars News report [FNA report]. The US contends that the allegations against Hekmati are false and that his confessions were forced [AFP report].

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011 is considered one of the biggest man-made environmental disasters of all time and the largest nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. Following the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, three Fukushima reactors experienced full meltdowns, while the other three malfunctioned in various other ways. Due to the tsunami, flood waters swept in and out of the building, becoming irradiated and affecting the surrounding area. Japan has been criticized for its handling of the crisis, and international reception to nuclear energy has fallen sharply since the incident. In a Forum op-ed, Fukushima Illustrates Need for Nuclear Policy [JURIST op-ed], Tamar Cerafici of the Cerafici Law Firm discussed how the Fukushima disaster should guide US policy. In August Japanese lawmakers voted to create a fund to compensate victims [JURIST report].

Opposition leaders are not the only group that has shown skepticism about the validity of Khodorkovsky's sentence. In December, the Russia Presidential Council on Civil Society and Human Rights under President Dmitry Medvedev called for the prosecutor general to petition to annul the conviction [JURIST report]. Describing the verdict as fictitious, council member and former Constitutional Court judge, Tamara Morshchakova, noted the council found neither evidence nor substance to the charges brought against Khodorkovsky in the second trial. The council's decisions are non-binding and have seldom elicited action from Russian authorities. In July, the council urged amnesty for economic crimes in a meeting with Medvedev that would include amnesty for the crimes of Khodorkovsky. Last year former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov testified [JURIST report] that former president and current prime minister Vladimir Putin ordered Khodorkovsky's arrest for political reasons, indicating that Khodorkovsky had funded the Communist Party without first getting approval to do so from the president.

At oral arguments [JURIST report], the attorney for the state of California argued that, due to numerous safeguards and procedural rulings on the effectiveness of Clair's counsel, the state had done due diligence in protecting his rights and did not have an obligation to grant him new counsel after 12 years of proceedings. The attorney for Clair disagreed and argued that Clair did not have a right to new counsel, merely a right to a thorough investigation of his current counsel, which he was denied.

Soltani has faced previous charges brought by the Iranian government. In 2007 an Iranian appeals court acquitted Soltani of charges related to espionage [JURIST report] after the court determined there was no evidence of illegal activity. The Iranian appeals court decision overturned the lower court's finding of guilt and prior sentence of five years imprisonment. During this prior trial, Soltani served a total of seven months in prison. Soltani was arrested in 2005 while he was representing the family of Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi [CBC backgrounder], who died in Iranian custody in July 2003 amidst allegations of torture and abuse [JURIST report].

Courts throughout the US and across the globe have struggled to define parental rights for same-sex couples. Last month a Massachusetts court ruled that same-sex couples who marry and have a baby via artificial insemination are bound by the same child custody laws [JURIST report] as heterosexual couples. In January an Iowa court ordered that the Department of Public Health must include both names [JURIST report] of married same-sex parents on children's birth certificates, causing one expert to opine that the arguments made in the public debate surrounding the case demonstrate a break from the goals of the early gay rights movement and could be used to justify discrimination [JURIST op-ed] against other forms of non-traditional families. In October the US Supreme Court [official website] denied certiorari [JURIST report] in Adar v. Smith [backgrounder], in which a same-sex couple asked Louisiana to include both of their names on the birth certificate of their adopted child. That same month, a Canadian court granted legal rights to a non-biological father of a child—the ex-partner of the biological father—over the biological father in a child custody case.