UAE has been widely criticized for its crackdown of political activists. In April Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] and HRW issued [JURIST report] a joint public statement [text, PDF] urging the country to halt the arrests and release political activists. Last July numerous rights groups including HRW, AI, the Arabic Network For Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Front Line Defenders (FLD) [advocacy website] had called [JURIST report] UAE to end the trial against the five activists. In April of last year, HRW urged [JURIST report] UAE to reverse its decision to dissolve the elected board members of the Jurist Association civil rights group and appointed state officials in their stead.

Psychotropic substances have been an issue worldwide. The UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances [materials] was signed [JURIST news archive] in Vienna, Austria on February 21, 1971. The Convention was intended to regulate psychotropic substances extending the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs [materials] regulating cannabis-, cocoa- and opium-based drugs. In 1981 the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances [materials] was passed to deal with international drug manufacture, possession and distribution, primarily in organized crime. The Convention include 175 nations that have their own laws implementing the Convention within their own boundaries, such as the US Psychotropic Substances Act, the UK Misuse of Drugs Act and the Canadian Controlled Substances Act [texts].

In June more than 1,300 people filed a criminal complaint [JURIST report] against TEPCO for the March 2011 crisis and for the plaintiffs' resulting radiation. The complaint named as defendants Tsunehisa Katsumata, the chairman of TEPCO, Masataka Shimizu, the former president of the company, and Haruki Madarame [Washington Times profiles], the chief of the Nuclear Safety Commission, along with 30 other executives. 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 meltdown 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 April 2011 Tamar Cerafici of the Cerafici Law Firm discussed how the Fukushima disaster should guide US policy [JURIST op-ed]. Last August Japanese lawmakers voted to create a fund to compensate victims [JURIST report].

A similar fraud claim was brought against the Deutsche Bank in May 2011. US Attorney Preet Bharara filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] against the bank accusing it to have engaged in mortgage fraud. The US was seeking more than $1 billion in damages including punitive damages and fines in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website]. The complaint alleged that the bank had lied to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) [official website] during the period from 1999 to 2009 to obtain and maintain the Direct Endorsement Lender (DEL) status of its subsidiary, MortgageIT. The DEL program enables private lenders to give out mortgages that are qualified for FHA insurance. The MortgageIT however had allegedly ignored the eligibility requirements during the ten-year period.

Last week the Israeli Supreme Court postponed the demolition of illegal West Bank settlements [JURIST report], with 30 apartments having had been scheduled for demolition on July 1. West Bank settlements have caused tension between Israel and Palestinian authorities, as well as criticism by international groups, despite the Israeli parliament's vote [JURIST report] against legalizing the unauthorized settlement last month. Also last month the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Richard Falk demanded [JURIST report] Israel cease its demolition [press release] of Palestinian buildings in the West Bank settlements after finding that the demolition of Palestinian structures such as houses, animal shelters, water cisterns and roads have risen by 87 percent from last year. Israel responded to international investigations into these settlements by announcing [JURIST report] in March that it will sever ties to the UN Human Rights Council. The announcement came after the UN body initiated its investigation to determine the effect that Israeli settlements have had on the civil, political, economic and cultural rights of the Palestinian people. Even in March 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] called [JURIST report] in a press conference Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank "illegal."

Israel has been continuously criticized for its treatment of Palestinian detainees. Last month UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Richard Falk [official website] called on Israel to release two Palestinians on hunger strike [JURIST report] after they fell into ill health. That week Amnesty International (AI) urged Israel to release all prisoners [JURIST report] of conscience and administrative detainees or immediately try them under international fair trial standards. In May UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to try or release the 1,600 Palestinian prisoners [JURIST report] who had been on hunger strike, to avoid health risks. Earlier the same month the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against [JURIST report] two detainees who had been on hunger strike in their appeal seeking release from detention. During the same month Falk expressed his concern [JURIST report] for the continued human rights violations in Israel's prisons. He called on the country to comply with the international standards of how to treat detainees.

The purging of voter rolls in Florida has created controversy in recent weeks. Florida has also recently faced challenges to its purging policy from the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (ACLU-FL) [official website; JURIST report] and a coalition of rights groups [JURIST report] on behalf of several Florida citizens. In June the state said continue to search for ineligible voters even after receiving a letter from DOJ ordering them to stop the practice, prompting DOJ to sue the state. Also that month a federal judge blocked [JURIST report] part of Florida's new election law that required any group that conducts a voter registration drive to turn in registration forms within 48 hours of collecting them or else face a $1,000 per day fine. Last October the state submitted a request [JURIST report] to a federal court challenging the Voting Rights Act (VRA) [text].

Last week AU announced [JURIST report] that it will vote on whether to establish a continental criminal court to try human rights crimes. The African Court on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) currently does not have jurisdiction to try criminals and asked the AU to pass a resolution granting it the authority to sentence human rights criminals. Last year, African Union Commission (AUC) [official website] Chairperson Jean Ping had accused [JURIST report] former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court [official website], Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile], of targeting African citizens for prosecution. The accusation came amid a vote by Africa's foreign ministers, who supported Kenya's bid to defer the trials of numerous suspects who allegedly planned the 2007 post-election violence [Reuters backgrounder]. In 2010 the Kenyan Parliament approved a motion to withdraw the country from the ICC [JURIST report]. The vote came a week after Ocampo presented [JURIST report] cases against six individuals believed to be responsible for the 2007 post-election violence that resulted in more than 1,000 deaths in the country.

The arrest of the chief justice and the resulting unrest in Maldives have sparked weeks of tension and unrest that drew international attention. Last week the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) [advocacy website] claimed that press freedom in the country has been deteriorating [JURIST report] since Nasheed's resignation. CPJ argued that under the current president reporters are facing police brutality and attacks by political extremists. In April the Maldives Police Service [official website] had sent the case of the chief justice to the Prosecutor's General Office filing charges against the former president two months after an arrest warrant [JURIST reports] against him was issued. Nasheed has claimed that the arrest and charges against him were politically motivated. The warrant was issued two days after he resigned from his office. A group of Maldives lawyers in January had submitted [JURIST report] the case at issue to the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] seeking the intervention by the UN-backed court. The lawyers were asking the court to deem the detention of the chief justice a violation of the International Convention on the Protection of all Persons against Enforced Disappearance [text]. During the same month, the Maldives Minister of Foreign Affairs [official website] had asked [JURIST report] the UN to help them to resolve the unrest arising out of the arrest of the chief justice.