Canada Statistics has been issuing a national report on hate crime annually since 2006, and covers 99 percent of Canada's population. The country saw some of its steepest increases in police-reported hate crime in 2008 [JURIST report], up 35 percent from 2007. Like today, race, religion, and sexual orientation were found to be the major motivations of these crimes, and roughly 75 percent of sexual orientation crimes were reported to be violent.

Congress established the Indian trust in 1887 to hold proceeds from government-arranged leases of Indian lands. Last October, a federal judge approved a $3.4 billion settlement [JURIST report] between American Indians and the US government clearing the way for appeals of the settlement to begin. The deadline for approval was extended in 2010 after Congress was granted additional time [JURIST reports] to consider the settlement. In July 2009, the district court ordered [JURIST report] the DOI to provide an accounting of the trust to the court. In 2008, a judge rejected claims that the government had engaged in fraud, bud held [JURIST reports] that the DOI "unreasonably delayed" the accounting of billions of dollars of American Indian money. The case went to trial in 2008 after a rejected settlement [JURIST reports] in 2007.

The NSPA does not criminalize the theft of intangible things. ... By uploading Goldman's proprietary source code to a computer server in Germany, Aleynikov stole purely intangible property embodied in a purely intangible format. There was no allegation that he physically seized anything tangible from Goldman. ... We decline to stretch or update statutory words of plain and ordinary meaning in order to better accommodate the digital age.

Lawmakers have struggled recently to pass laws that sufficiently balance intellectual property rights and rights of its citizens in a digital age. In January, the US House of Representatives agreed to postpone hearings on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) [text, PDF] after several major websites, consumer advocacy groups and the president voiced opposition to the bill. Earlier that month, the Spanish government approved a new law [JURIST report] that creates a government agency with the authority to force Internet service providers to block certain websites that are involved in pirating copyrighted material. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in November that Internet service providers cannot be required by law to monitor [JURIST report] their customers' activities as an attempt to combat illegal sharing of copyrighted material.

The urgency of the situation in Mali is exacerbating an already extremely serious humanitarian crisis affecting the whole of the Sahel region, and the country may soon be plunged into a devastating food crisis with a risk of other shortages, including medical supplies, if the insurrections and insecurity persist.

Mali has experienced military turmoil since Taureg rebels began attacking Malian soldiers [Al Jazeera report] in January. Last month Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, who led Malian soldiers in last month's military coup [JURIST report], announced he would reinstate the country's 1992 Constitution [text, PDF, in French] and create a transitional government to hold elections. Also in March the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) [official website] expressed concern over political and security instability in Mali [JURIST report], and how ongoing fighting between government forces and Tuareg rebels will affect Malians forced to flee their homes in search of safety. Last month the acting head of the EU delegation in Mali, Bertrand Soret, met with Sanogo and urged a quick return to constitutional order [JURIST report]. Soret indicated that the EU expected the Malian military to find a solution to the current crisis, and that he has asked to have access to government ministers that have been detained by the military. The UNHCR reported last month that more than 80,000 people had fled Mali [press release] to escape the fighting.

The landmark right to education law took effect [BBC report] in April 2010. In India, some 8 million children do not receive a full primary school education [World Bank report]. Most of these children come from marginalized and impoverished social groups. When it took effect the law was immediately heralded by proponents of expansion of access to public education in India. An India representative for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) [official website] stated that the law "serves as a building block to ensure that every child has the right to guaranteed quality elementary education. The state, with the help of families and communities, has a legal obligation to fulfil [sic] this duty."

After Saif al-Islam's arrest in November, Libyan leader Prime Minister Abdurrahim al-Keib vowed that Saif al-Islam would receive a fair trial [JURIST reports] in Libya. Ocampo said in October that he has evidence against Saif al-Islam [JURIST report] for his role in planning attacks on Libyan civilians. Ocampo says that there is "substantial evidence" that Saif al-Islam hired mercenaries to assist him in carrying out plans to attack demonstrators that protested the rule of his father. In February JURIST Guest Columnist D Wes Rist of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law discussed the confusion [JURIST op-ed] surrounding Saif al-Islam's prosecution, noting that, "[a]ny attempt extend the reach of the ICC into areas it was not created to address runs the risk of weakening the overall authority of the Court and the willingness of member states to comply with ICC orders."

Turkey is currently involved in the trial of other former military leaders for a 1980 coup that led to three years of military rule, during which 50 people were hanged and half a million arrested. Early this month, the Ankara 12th High Criminal Court began the trial [JURIST report] of the last two surviving leaders of the 1980 coup, two retired generals, 94-year-old Kenan Evren [official profile], who held the presidential office for seven years following the military takeover, and 87-year-old former air force commander Tahsin Sahinkaya, who did not appear in court due to ill health. In June, Evren became the first military leader questioned since constitutional immunity was repealed in 2010. The court accepted the indictment against Evren and Sahinkaya in January, after the prosecution charged the two retired generals [JURIST reports] a week earlier. In August, the court issued arrest warrants [JURIST report] for seven generals and admirals relating to allegations that they created an anti-government website in 2009. After being detained for questioning in connection with their alleged coup plot, three high ranking military officials were released by the court, but remained under investigation.

I'm pleased the House passed the bill, and when it gets to my desk I will sign it. I want to be careful in the tone of my remarks, out of respect for the gravity of the issue at hand and out of respect for people on both sides of the issue. When I sign this bill, Connecticut will join 16 other states and almost every other industrialized nation in moving toward what I believe is better public policy. For decades, we have not had a workable death penalty. Only one person's been executed in Connecticut in the last 52 years, and he volunteered for it. Going forward, we will have a system that allows us to put these people away for life, in living conditions none of us would want to experience. Le's throw away the key and have them spend the rest of their natural lives in jail.

Connecticut has executed only one person since the federal moratorium on executions lapsed in 1981. When the bill is signed into law, Connecticut will become the seventeenth state to abolish the death penalty and the fifth to do so in the past five years. New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Illinois [JURIST reports] have all recently eliminated the death penalty, while 34 states retain its use. Last year, the Connecticut Supreme Court did uphold the death penalty [JURIST report] as lawful under the state's constitution. The death penalty remains a controversial issue worldwide. According to an Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] report [text, PDF], the number of countries using the death penalty dropped in 2009 [JURIST report], but more than 700 people were executed in 18 countries, with the most executions carried out in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the US.

The movement towards stronger voter photo ID law has grown over the past few years and there are now 31 US states [NCSL backgrounder] that require voters to present some form of ID at the poll, including 15 states that require photo ID, but the issue remains controversial. In February, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson filed suit against the DOJ over its ruling that barred South Carolina [JURIST reports] from enforcing its voter ID law. In June, Missouri's Governor vetoed a proposed photo ID law, and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld a law [JURIST reports] in March 2010 requiring one of six government-issued photo IDs. In 2010, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] struck down [JURIST report] a portion of Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration. Texas is also embroiled in a battle over controversial redistricting maps. Last month, Texas issued new voting maps [JURIST report] for use in the 2012 elections after an "interim map" was challenged before the Supreme Court [official website], which heard arguments [JURIST report] in January. The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to reject the interim maps [JURIST report].