Burqas and other symbols of Islam have been a controversial subject in Europe. In July the Netherlands announced that a ban on burqas would go forward [JURIST report] later this year. Proponents of the Netherlands ban said the purpose was to stop people from being able to commit crimes and remain undetected by concealing their identities and covering their faces. Belgium officially banned [JURIST report] burqas in July 2011. France's ban on burqas took effect [JURIST report] on April 11 2011. Swiss voters approved a proposal to ban the construction of minarets [JURIST report] in November 2009, and the vote was subsequently upheld [JURIST report] in the European Court of Human Rights [official website] in July 2011. Some commentators have suggested that the rationales behind the European burqa bans are weak [JURIST op-ed] and that the true purpose of the bills is societal discomfort.

BOA has had a contentious litigation history recently. In July BOA to pay $375 million [JURIST report] in a settlement with bond insurer Syncora Guarantee [corporate website] over claims that Syncora was misled into insuring toxic mortgage-backed securities of BOA-owned Countrywide Financial Corporation [NYT backgrounder]. Also that month a federal judge rejected [JURIST report] a motion by BOA to dismiss a shareholder lawsuit alleging BOA's purposeful concealment of the bank's exposure to billions of dollars in loan repurchase claims and its problematic reliance on an electronic loan registry. In December BOA reached a $315 million settlement of claims brought by investors alleging they were misled with respect to mortgage-backed investments, and a $335 million settlement [JURIST reports] with the Department of Justice, relating to discriminatory lending practices. In June 2011 BOA announced an $8.5 billion settlement [JURIST report] agreement arising from claims that it had sold bad securities that contributed to the housing market collapse.

Copyright infringement is an international concern. In June two of the founders of of the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay (TPB) [website] filed appeals in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website], challenging their convictions for copyright violations [JURIST report] in a Swedish court after the Swedish Supreme Court [official website] refused to hear their appeal [JURIST report] earlier this year. The Swedish Svea Appeals Court [materials] upheld [JURIST report] the convictions of TPB founders in November 2011. Also in June the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] ruledin favor of Google [corporate website] in the case of Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc. [case materials], holding that Google did not infringe patents and copyrights [JURIST report] held by Oracle [corporate website] when it used Oracle's 37 Java application programming interface (API) packages for its Android operating system. In May JURIST Guest Columnist Sandeep Kanak Rathod, an LLM Candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, explored differences in copyright law in the US and India [JURIST comment], contrasting the judicial tests used in each country when courts evaluate infringement claims.

More than 20,000 people have died [Reuters report] in the violent conflict in Syria. Pinheiro said that there was no military solution to the crisis and some members of the Security Council have called for the matter to be forwarded to the International Criminal Court and for sanctions to be levied against Syria. The COI released a report [text, PDF] in August concluding that the Syrian government was committing serious human rights violations [JURIST report]. The report found that government and Shabbiha forces are responsible for instances of rape, murder, torture and attacks against civilian populations. The report further concluded that the Syrian government was responsible for the deaths of more than 100 civilians, including women and children, in Al-Houla in May. They Syrian government had previously denied involvement in the massacre [JURIST report]. The COI had previously released an inconclusive report [JURIST report] in June suggesting that the government may have played a role in the deaths at Al-Houla.

UN officials have repeatedly expressed concern about international drug trafficking and its affects on government stability. In July the UNODC launched its global awareness-raising campaign [JURIST report] with the purpose of informing the public about the economic costs and human impact associated with the threat transnational organized criminal networks are creating. The UN-backed body estimated that the illegal profits gained by the organizations represent "more than 6 times the amount of official development assistance, and are comparable to 1.5 per cent of global GDP, or 7 per cent of the world's exports of merchandise." In February UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] called for an increase in efforts to curb transnational organized crime [JURIST report], drug trafficking and piracy in West Africa. In an address to the UN Security Council [official website], the Secretary-General said he was "particularly concerned about reports stating that terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, have formed alliances with drug traffickers."

Last week Brewer's lawyers and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] presented Bolton with a joint filing suggesting wording for the court order [JURIST report] permitting police to enforce the SB 1070 "show me your papers" provision. Immigration law [JURIST backgrounder] has became a hot button issue as many states have passed anti-immigration laws modeled on Arizona's. In August the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] struck down [JURIST report] several provisions of Alabama's controversial immigration law [HB 56, PDF], upheld a few sections of the law and rejected part of Georgia's immigration law [HB 87, text]. That same month, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] heard arguments [JURIST report] on two anti-illegal immigrant laws enacted in 2006 by the city of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which deny permits to businesses that employ illegal immigrants and fine landlords who extend housing to them. In July a judge for the US District Court for the District of South Carolina [official website] declined to lift an injunction [JURIST report] against South Carolina's controversial immigration law [SB 20 materials] despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Arizona.