Bahrain has faced international criticism for its crackdown against dissidents since anti-government protests began last year. Earlier this month the Bahrain government extended [JURIST report] the detention of Sayed Yousif Al-Muhafda [official Twitter], a leading human rights activist. He had been arrested during an unauthorized protest a week before. In October Bahrain appeals court upheld [JURIST report] verdicts against two teachers for organizing a teachers' strike early last year to support anti-government protests. During the same month Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] urged Bahrain's court of appeals to overturn [JURIST report] the conviction of human right advocate Nabeel Rajab [JURIST news archive]. In September Bahrain pledged to follow the UN's plan [JURIST report] to improve the country's human rights conditions, but HRW raised doubts as to whether the government is fully committed to reform.

It was not within United's range of apprehension that terrorists would slip through the PWM security screening checkpoint, fly to Logan, proceed through another air carrier's security screening and board that air carrier's flight, hijack the flight and crash it into I World Trade Center, let alone that 1 World Trade Center would therefore collapse and cause Tower 7 to collapse.

Wednesday's ruling deviated significantly from a previous ruling by Hellerstein. In September, he ruled that American Airlines and United Continental Holdings must stand trial to defend [JURIST report] against a claim by World Trade Center Properties (WTCP), the owners of the World Trade Center towers, who claim that the negligence of the airlines allowed the hijackers aboard the planes which eventually destroyed the towers on 9/11. In so holding, he rejected the defendants' claim that the airlines should not be required to go to trial as WTCP already recovered from insurance companies. In 2007 a $4.09 billion settlement was reached [JURIST report] between insurance companies and WTCP. WTCP was seeking damages from the airlines in the range of $8.4 billion, which they estimate would be the cost of replacing the two towers. The judge in that case has limited to their earnings to the "lesser of fair market value or replacement cost" of the towers which he has put at $2.805 billion—the price WTCO agreed to pay the for the lease for the towers two months prior to the 9/11 attack.

In August the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] awarded $21 million [JURIST report] to seven Somalis in separate CJA lawsuit [CJA materials] against former Somali prime minister Mohamed Ali Samantar [JURIST news archive]. The lawsuit, which started in 2004 and made it to the US Supreme Court [JURIST report] in 2010, alleged Samantar was responsible for the killing and torture of members of the Isaaq clan in Somalia throughout the 1980s under former dictator Siad Barre. In April 2011 the Virginia court denied a motion to dismiss [JURIST report] the lawsuit against Samantar, whose lawyers had argued for dismissal because the statute of limitations had expired and because the courts should not interfere in political matters. That February a federal judge had ruled that Samantar was not entitled to legal immunity from civil lawsuits [JURIST report], following the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) [28 USC §§ 1330, 1602 et seq. text] does not provide foreign officials immunity from civil lawsuits.

One day before Kasab's execution the Indian Supreme Court [official website] criticized the inconsistent application of the court's own 32-year-old "rarest of rare" standard [judgment, PDF] for imposition of the death penalty in India: "If the court finds, but not otherwise, that the offence is of an exceptionally depraved and heinous character and constitutes, on account of its design and the manner of its execution, a source of grave danger to the society at large, the court may impose the death sentence." Regardless the court had already upheld Kasab's death sentence [JURIST report] in August, finding the shootings to be a cross-border terrorist attack warranting "rarest of rare" punishment. The court had stayed the execution in October 2011 after Kasab filed an appeal challenging his death sentence [JURIST reports], which was ultimately upheld. In February 2011 a lower Indian appeals court also upheld [JURIST report] Kasab's conviction and death sentence.

The Afghan government's human rights record has been under scrutiny in the past. In March HRW called on the Afghan government to release women and girls imprisoned [JURIST report] for "moral crimes," many of which involve flight from unlawful forced marriage or domestic violence and "zina," which is sex outside of marriage due to rape or forced prostitution. In December 2011 HRW said that the Afghan government had failed to ensure and protect human rights [JURIST report] since the Taliban government ended 10 years ago. The report alleged that in the last 10 years, the Afghanistan justice system had "remain[ed] weak" and that human rights abuses were rampant in the alternative traditional justice system, where civilians are often forced to resolve disputes in Taliban courts. In July 2010 the advocacy group criticized Karzai's integration and reconciliation efforts [JURIST report] to end the conflict with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, claiming that women's rights were bypassed in order to reach an expedient solution. Among HRW's criticisms was the president's decision to sign the Shia Personal Status Law [JURIST report], which legalized rape within marriage, and his pardon of two convicted rapists.

The Supreme Court also granted certiorari in Sebelius v. Cloer [docket; cert. petition, PDF]. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion] that Melissa Cloer, who filed a claim against the federal government that was ultimately ruled untimely, could recover her attorney's fees if the claim is found to have merit. The US Department of Health and Human Services [official website] appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

Prohibit the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons through an international legally binding instrument. ... Adopt national laws and policies to prohibit the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons. ... [and] Commence reviews of technologies and components that could lead to fully autonomous weapons. These reviews should take place at the very beginning of the development process and continue throughout the development and testing phases.

The use of high technology weapons, including robots, unmanned drones, and cybersecurity attacks, present a myriad of new problems for law- and policy-makers, military planners and the public at large. The challenges include determining which technologies should be permitted, the limits to the manner in which they will be used and the definition of accountability for the results of the various tools. In July, US lawmakers, at a hearing before the US House Committee on Homeland Security [official website], expressed concern [JURIST report] over the use of unmanned drones and sought information on their domestic use and their potential security and safety implications. In April the US House of Representatives [official website] voted to approve a controversial cybersecurity bill [JURIST report] that would allow private companies and the federal government to exchange private security information. In April 2007 a German court ruled [JURIST report] that police in Germany are not permitted to secretly access computer and Internet data stored on suspects' computers without proper authorization.