The death penalty may only be imposed, in countries that still have this form of punishment, if a strict set of substantive and procedural requirements are met. ... The arbitrary killing of people, also when it is committed behind a smokescreen of flawed legal processes, is not solely a matter of domestic concern. Iraq should take note that the international community will take strong exception to a continuation of its flagrant disregard of the norms applicable to the protection of the right to life.

The issue of the death penalty [JURIST news archive] continues to be debated on an international level as well as in individual states in the US. On Thursday UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] urged the Gambia to enact a moratorium on the death penalty [JURIST report]. In July Singapore announced it planned to relax mandatory death sentences in certain cases [JURIST report]. Just one week before UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [official profile] called for an end to capital punishment [JURIST report]. In April an initiative in California dealing with overhauling death penalty laws in the state [JURIST report] made it on to the ballot for a November vote.

Under existing federal law, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has issued a directive allowing certain undocumented individuals who meet several key criteria for relief from removal from the United States or from entering into removal proceedings to be eligible to receive deferred action for a period of 2 years, subject to renewal, and who will be eligible to apply for work authorization. This bill would allow persons who provide satisfactory proof, as described, that their presence in the United States is authorized under federal law ... to receive an original driver's license from the Department of Motor Vehicles if they meet all other qualifications for licensure.

Immigration laws [JURIST backgrounder] have became a hot button issue over the past few years when many states, beginning with Arizona, passed laws giving their state and local officials more power to crack down on illegal immigration. Last week Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach [official website] filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging the Deferred Action policy directive. Two weeks ago a federal judge heard arguments [JURIST report] on whether to uphold a controversial provision of Arizona's immigration law that requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop. The provision was upheld [JURIST report] by the US Supreme Court but only on the grounds that it did not conflict with the federal government's powers regarding illegal immigration. Earlier that week the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] partially struck down [JURIST report] Alabama and Georgia's immigration laws, but upheld other provisions. Earlier in August Utah's Attorney General argued that the state's restrictive immigration law should be upheld [JURIST report] in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Arizona v. United States [opinion, PDF; JURIST report].

Bensouda said last month that her office is opening a preliminary examination [JURIST report] of the recent violence in Mali, after the ICC received a letter from Malian government officials requesting an ICC investigation. Malian Justice Minister Malick Coulibaly said earlier that month that he would ask the ICC to open an investigation [JURIST report]. In May AI reported that Mali is facing its worst human rights crisis [JURIST report] since it gained independence in 1960. HRW released a similar report in April claiming that all sides to the conflict are committing war crimes [JURIST report]. Earlier in April the ICC said they would monitor the situation [JURIST report] in Mali for potential crimes under the ICC's jurisdiction. All of this has come after Malian soldiers took control of the government [JURIST report] and suspended the constitution in March. Many in the international community have expressed concern over the situation, including the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees [JURIST reports]. The turmoil began when Tuareg rebels attacked Malian soldiers [Al Jazeera report].

Apple and Samsung have been embroiled in continuous patent litigation in courts around the world. This ruling comes on the heels of Apple winning a USD $1.05 billion judgment [JURIST report] against Samsung last week in the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website]. The suit covered everything from the shape and design of the competing companies' tablets and smartphones to the technology employed in the devices' software interface. Following the jury award Apple moved to block [JURIST report] eight Samsung products from being produced and sold in the US on Tuesday. Last week a South Korean court found that Apple and Samsung had violated each others' patents [JURIST report] and banned the sales of some of the companies' products in the country. In July a UK court ruled [JURIST report] that Samsung tablets do not infringe on Apple's design. Earlier in July a federal judge issued an injunction [JURIST report] against Samsung to stop the sale of its Galaxy Nexus smartphone in the US. A week earlier the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had rejected [Bloomberg report; CAFC notice] Samsung's appeal of the decision that remanded the case to the district court giving Apple another opportunity to ban Samsung's Galaxy products in the states after it partially reversed [JURIST report] the district court's refusal to grant a temporary injunction for Apple against Samsung. Apple's request for a temporary injunction was denied [JURIST report] by the district court in December.

Current Mexican President Felipe Calderon [BBC profile] had also called for an investigation into the allegations of vote buying. His National Action Party [party website, in Spanish] announced that it would file legal challenges related to the election, but unlike Obrador, he did not seek to annul the electoral result. Obrador came in second, 6.62 percent behind Nieto, who won the election with 38.21 percent of the vote. Nieto's electoral victory was confirmed [JURIST report] by a final vote count in early July. The Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) [official website, in Spanish] recounted around half of results from the election's 143,132 polling stations after finding evidence of inconsistencies [JURIST report]. Obrador had requested a total recount after he finished second behind Nieto in the July 1 election.

Former associates of Mubarak continue to face charges for their part in his regime. An Egyptian court in July rejected pleas to release [JURIST report] Mubarak's two sons while they await trial. Gamal and Alaa Mubarak, along with seven others, were charged [JURIST report] with stock market fraud and using unfair trading practices and illegally manipulating the market. Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison [JURIST report] after an Egyptian court found him guilty of complicity to kill protesters during the Arab Spring protests [JURIST news archive]. During the protests that resulted in the overturning of Mubarak's 30-year regime, Mubarak ordered government officials to use gunfire and other violent measures to subdue protesters, resulting in more than 850 deaths [JURIST report]. Mubarak's trial ended in February with the chief prosecutor asking the court in his closing remarks to issue a death sentence [JURIST reports] against the former ruler.

AUSA John Durham has now completed his investigations, and the Department has decided not to initiate criminal charges in these matters. In reaching this determination, Mr. Durham considered all potentially applicable substantive criminal statutes as well as the statutes of limitations and jurisdictional provisions that govern prosecutions under those statutes. Mr. Durham and his team reviewed a tremendous volume of information pertaining to the detainees. That review included both information and matters that were not examined during the Department's prior reviews. Based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the Department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.

Earlier this month the US House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee [official websites] filed a lawsuit seeking to compel Holder to produce subpoenaed documents relating to a failed arms-tracking operation [JURIST report]. The lawsuit requested that the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] order Holder to deliver a specific set of documents subpoenaed by the committee in October and withheld by Holder under an assertion of executive privilege [Cornell LII backgrounder]. In June the DOJ announced that it would not prosecute Holder after the House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress [JURIST reports] for failing to fully comply with subpoenas ordering those documents.

Arbitration is becoming an increasingly popular form of dispute resolution around the world. Earlier this month Shafiq Jamoos, co-owner of the Jamoos Law Office, reviewed the costs and benefits of international arbitration [JURIST comment] compared to traditional litigation, writing that there is no definitive answer as to which is an inherently "better" process. Last month Russia's Federal Arbitration Court ordered British Petroleum (BP) to pay 100 billion rubles (US$3.1 billion) in damages [JURIST report] to TNK-BP, BP's 50-50 joint venture with Alfa Access Renova (AAR) [corporate websites], a consortium representing four Russian billionaire tycoons. In April Dmytro Vorobey, an LL.M. Candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law [official website] and intern at the district prosecutor's office and the district court in Novomoskovk, Ukraine, provided a critique of Ukraine's progress towards implementing consistent international arbitration practices [JURIST comment].

Israeli governmental institutions have consistently embraced impunity and non-accountability in responding to well-documented violations of international humanitarian law and in many cases Israel's own criminal law. It is impossible to separate the outcome here from a pattern of similar results exonerating military actions and the political leaders who ordered them, in Israeli investigations of the killing of Palestinian civilians during the Operation Cast Lead attack on Gaza or the commando assault in 2010 on Turkish ships filled with activists bringing humanitarian supplies to the blockaded people of Gaza.

There has been growing concern over human rights violation in Israel. Earlier this month Amnesty International [advocacy website] said that Israel should investigate the alleged mistreatment of two Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike [JURIST news archive]. Last month a UN special committee, composed of representatives from Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Senegal, condemned [JURIST report] Israel's treatment of child detainees. The committee detailed law enforcement practices such as violent raids on homes without warrants, use of solitary confinement, and interrogators pressuring children to become informants. In June Falk called on Israel to stop demolishing Palestinian homes [JURIST report]. The week before that the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression expressed concern over the freedom of speech in Israel and Palestine [JURIST report]. Also in June 50 aid groups and UN offices signed a joint statement urging Israel to end its blockade of the Gaza Strip [JURIST report].

Amnesty International Urges the European Commission through the accession process to: ensure progress is made towards ending impunity for enforced disappearances and abductions. This includes progress towards ensuring the right to justice and to adequate and effective reparation for the victims of enforced disappearances and abductions and their relatives.

The ICTY has been prosecuting various individuals for war crimes committed during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Last week prosecutors at the ICTY sought a life sentence [JURIST report] for former Bosnian Serb army commander Zdravko Tolimir, who served under Ratko Mladic [JURIST news archive] during the Bosnian civil war. Earlier this month the ICTY announced that former Serb official Mile Mrksic has been transferred to a Portuguese prison [JURIST report] to serve his 20-year sentence for war crimes. Earlier this month former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic [JURIST news archive] asked the ICTY for a new trial [JURIST report], accusing prosecutors of delaying the disclosure of crucial information.