I can only conclude that the insertion of "under God" into the pledge has not converted it from a political exercise that is "an acknowledgement of sovereignty, a promise of obedience, a recognition of authority above the will of the individual, to be respected and obeyed," and into a prayer. ... Accordingly, the pledge is not a religious exercise, and, in that context, the daily recitation of "under God" does not constitute an affirmation of a "religious truth."

Other courts have also upheld the Constitutionality of the controversial phrase. In November 2010 the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled [JURIST report] that a New Hampshire law requiring schools to schedule voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is constitutional. In October, of that year the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the words "one state under God" [JURIST report] in the Texas Pledge of Allegiance do not violate the First Amendment. That March the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that teacher-led recitation of the pledge in public schools does not violate the constitution [JURIST report]. In 2008 the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld [JURIST report] part of a Florida law that requires students in grades kindergarten through 12 to obtain parental permission in order to be excused from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

The plaintiffs filed a new suit against Wal-Mart in October after Breyer ordered [text, PDF; JURIST report] in August that the group of women seeking damages from Wal-Mart should file it by October. Two month earlier, the US Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs' request for a class action [JURIST report] because they did not meet the requirements for class certification. The original suit was filed in 2001 by female Wal-Mart employees [class website] contenting that Wal-Mart's policies resulted in lower pay for women than men in comparable positions and longer waits for management promotions than men. Wal-Mart appealed the class certification that was upheld [JURIST reports] by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website].

It is the fifth year in a row that violent crimes decreased. The trend continued from the preliminary semiannual report [text] that the FBI released [JURIST report] in December last year. The report for 2010 showed a decrease of 6.0 percent in violent crime and a decrease of 2.7 percent in property crime compared to 2009 statistics [JURIST reports]. The decrease began after 2006 and 2005 statistics [JURIST reports].

Alim is the most recent leader to be arrested and charged with war crimes for his participation in atrocities committed during the 1971 war. Last week, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the third-highest ranking member of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, was indicted on several counts [JURIST report], including genocide. Ghulam Azam, former head of the JI party, along with chief Matiur Rahman Nizami and deputy Abdul Quader Molla were indicted [JURIST report] last month by the ICTB. The tribunal ordered Azam's arrest [JURIST report] in January. In November the ICTB began its first trial [JURIST report] in the case against Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a former member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh and one of the former leaders of JI.

While accepting that international law is the proper authority to define human rights violations, the petitioners, Nigerian plaintiffs suing foreign-based oil companies, argued in February 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.

Other countries have also been drafting anti-corruption legislation. In November Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) [NYT backgrounder] announced [JURIST report] an amendment to its criminal law that would punish anyone who contributed to the corruption of politics and damaged the interests of the nation. This law will also apply to officials [JURIST report] including those who are elected into office. This amendment, however, was criticized [JURIST report] by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] for its potential abuse allowing authorities to imprison anyone who is involved "political corruption," which is vaguely defined and deprive them from running for office.

Earlier this month, a pre-trial chamber of the ICC granted a request by the Libyan government to postpone an order to transfer [JURIST report] Saif al-Islam to ICC custody. The issue of which court is going to try Saif al-Islam has been in dispute since he was captured [JURIST report] by Libyan rebel forces in November. In April ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] stated that the maximum penalty for Saif al-Islam in the ICC would be life in prison, but if convicted in a national court he could face the death penalty [JURIST report]. Earlier that month Ocampo asked the ICC to report Libya to the UN Security Council for failing to turn over Saif al-Islam. Libya expressly denied [JURIST report] the ICC's request for such action and stated that Saif al-Islam will face trial within the country. In February 2011, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to refer the matter in Libya to the ICC prosecutor [JURIST report]. The ICC claimed jurisdiction over Saif al-Islam despite its announcement in November that it may allow Libya to conduct the trial [JURIST report].

In May, the appeals chamber of the ICC rejected [JURIST report] the appeal challenging the court's jurisdiction in the two cases related to the post-election violence. The charges against Ruto and Sang were confirmed [JURIST report] by the pre-trial chamber in January. In March last year, the ICC had issued summons [JURIST report] for six individuals charged with their crimes committed during the unrest.

Also Monday the court declined to hear the appeal of US citizen and convicted terrorist Jose Padilla [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] challenging the dismissal [JURIST report] of his lawsuit against US officials for allegedly illegally detaining him at a military jail in South Carolina. In Lebron v. Rumsfeld [docket; cert. petition], Padilla argued that the Defense Department's methods of detaining him as an "enemy combatant" were unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which pursued Padilla's case, expressed disappointment [press release] with the court's denial of certiorari, saying: "The Supreme Court's refusal to consider Jose Padilla's case leaves in place a blank check for government officials to commit any abuse in the name of national security, even the brutal torture of an American citizen in an American prison." The Fourth Circuit, in upholding the dismissal of the initial suit, held that Padilla could not use a lawsuit seeking monetary damages to review an issue involving national security and that the judiciary was not the proper forum to rule on the legislature-adopted policies responsible for his detention. Padilla was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and thereafter detained as an enemy combatant. He was convicted on terrorism charges in 2007 and sentenced [JURIST reports] to 17 years in prison.

The review comes after the court announced [JURIST report] that it granted an application for leave to appeal [judgment, PDF] filed by Khawaja. He was found guilty of participating in a terrorist group, instructing a person to finance terrorism, making property available to terrorists, contributing to a terrorist group and facilitating terrorism. In 2008, Khawaja pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to the charges. In 2007, Canadian Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley [official profile] refused to require the release of confidential evidence [JURIST report] against Khawaja, explaining that "disclosure of most of the information would be injurious to national security or to international relations." Khawaja was arrested in 2004.

Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter [JURIST report] to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, demanding that the state stop purging its voting rolls, a process that is not approved under the Voting Rights Act (VRA) [text] or the National Voter Registration Act [text, PDF]. Under the National Voter Registration Act, Florida's voter roll maintenance must have stopped 90 days before the August 14 primary election, meaning all purging should have stopped by May 16. Florida also failed to seek the necessary DOJ or federal court approval for the process it used to purge voter rolls. Florida's process, which is designed to remove non-citizens from voter rolls, has caused some US citizens to be improperly flagged and removed from voter rolls. Despite the DOJ warning, a spokesperson for Florida Governor Rick Scott said that the state plans to continue to search for ineligible voters [Huffington Post report] and purging the rolls.

The court affirmed the decision [text] of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which held that the CRSA was the sole avenue of relief for the petitioners. The case was originally brought in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, where the court found that it did have jurisdiction, and ruled against the employees on the merits. The Supreme Court's affirmance of the First Circuit vacates the decision of the District court and dismisses the case in federal court. The petitioners are not barred from further pursuing their cases in the MSPB, as long as the claim is within the statute of limitations.

The court also granted certiorari in Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds [docket; cert. petition, PDF] to address an issue involving a misrepresentation case under Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5 [text]. The questions are whether the district court must require proof of materiality before certifying a plaintiff class based on the fraud-on-the-market theory and whether a defendant should be given the opportunity to rebut such presumption at the class certification stage. The plaintiff, Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (CRPTF) [official website] filed a security fraud action against Amgen Inc. [corporate website], a biotechnology company, for misstating and failing to disclose safety information about two products it sold. The district court certified the action as a class action under Rule 23(b)(3) [Cornell LII backgrounder]. It also held that fraud-on-the-market presumption was demonstrated by CRPTF. Before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] the defendant argued that the plaintiffs did not prove that the alleged false statement were material and thus, could not have invoked presumption. The court, however, ruled [opinion] that the only elements plaintiff had to prove at the class certification stage are whether the market for stock was efficient and whether the information was public thereby affirming the district court's decision.

The court also issued a summary opinion [text, PDF] in Parker v. Matthews [docket]. The court reversed the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] decision in a two-murder case from 1981. The district court found the defendant guilty of all charges for killing his mother-in-law and his wife and sentenced him to death. The Kentucky Supreme Court [official website] affirmed. However, the court of appeals reversed that decision granting the defendant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus [28 USC Section 2254, Cornell LII backgrounder]. The Supreme Court held that the lower court did not have the authority to issue such writ under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) [text]. It held that "the court's decision is a textbook example" of what the AEDPA proscribes: "'using federal habeas corpus review as a vehicle to second-guess the reasonable decisions of state courts."

Last week, the ICTY judges in Karadic's case went on a five-day visit of locations relevant to his alleged crimes [JURIST report]. The delegates visited Srebrenica and BiH, as well as its surrounding areas. This visit came just months after the ICTY sentenced former president of the municipality of Sokolac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milan Tupajic to two months in prison for refusing to testify against Karadzic [JURIST report]. In February, former Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Ratko Mladic accused the ICTY of being biased [JURIST report]. In January, the ICTY accepted a plea deal [JURIST report], in the trial of the former case manager for Bosnian war criminal Milan Lukic, convicting her of five counts of contempt for procuring false witness statements. In December, the ICTY convicted former Yugoslav intelligence officer Dragomir Pecanac of contempt [JURIST report] for failing to testify before the tribunal.

China has faced criticism for its strict laws and human rights violations. Last week, China proposed [JURIST report] changes to its Internet law that would limit the ability of posting comments anonymously. It had tried to do so in 2010 by requiring [JURIST report] users to use their real names when posting on certain Chinese websites. In May, blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], who arrived in New York after he left the US embassy [JURIST reports] earlier that month, called the US to push China to promote the rule of law in China. Earlier in May, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported [JURIST report] that China's chengguan, a para-police organization charged with enforcing non-criminal administrative regulations, is abusing its power.

Google Books' scanning initiative has raised questions of copyright around the world. A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York last week granted class action status [JURIST report] to numerous authors suing Google the initiative, finding that Google has scanned millions of books without consent of the authors, and each author's claim arises out of the same conduct by Google. In March of last year a judge rejected an amended class action settlement agreement that was reached in 2008 between Google and the plaintiffs, who brought the copyright suit [JURIST reports] in 2005. The settlement agreement stated that Google would pay $125 million to the authors and publishers of copyrighted works in exchange for the permission to display up to 20 percent of the work online. The court reasoned that the settlement agreement would allow Google too much freedom to exploit copyrighted works in the future. This ruling came a month after Chin delayed [JURIST report] it because he was not ready.

In March, the executives of the company faced another complaint filed [JURIST report] by a group of shareholders in the amount of USD $67 billion for similar claims. They claimed that the company failed to prevent the March 2011 disaster by ignoring warning signs and failing to take appropriate measure to mitigate damages in the event of an earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The March 2011meltdown is considered one of the biggest man-made environmental disasters of all time and the largest nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. 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. Last August Japanese lawmakers voted to create a fund to compensate victims [JURIST report].