Last month, Pohl denied motion [JURIST report] filed by al-Nashiri's lawyers to dismiss alleged violations of the Military Commissions Act [text, PDF] in August 2012 on grounds that the bombing occurred "prior to the commencement of hostilities" between the US and al Qaeda [JURIST news archive]. Controversy continues to surround Guantanamo military trials. In December, Pohl upheld [JURIST report] a request to censor 9/11 conspirators' testimony. In September a judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia rejected [JURIST report] new restrictions on lawyers representing Guantanamo Bay detainees who have had their habeas corpus challenges denied or dismissed. The Department of Defense announced in 2011 that it had sworn charges against the five men [JURIST report] accused in the 9/11 attacks. In April 2011 US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four others would be tried by a military commission [JURIST report] after the Obama administration abandoned attempts to have the 9/11 suspects tried in civilian courts.

The rape and subsequent death [BBC reports] of a 23-year-old New Delhi medical student in December 2012 sparked mass protests in India and led to the creation of the committee that recommended the legal reforms in its report [JURIST report]. The report recommended numerous reforms in the way the nation's legal institutions handle rape cases, many of which were taken into consideration in the ordinance. In December Indian authorities charged six suspects [JURIST report] with murder after the death of the gang rape victim. Also in December Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [official profile] called for peace [JURIST report] after a protest over sexual violence resulted in a clash between protesters and police.

The continuing civil war in Syria has significant influence on the stability of Lebanon, due to the two countries' complex political and sectarian ties. Violent clashes [Al Jazeera report] between opposing Syrian factions have been commonplace throughout Lebanon since the beginning of the uprising in Syria last year. Last month a study carried out by the the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] found [JURIST report] that more than 60,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria since March 2011. In the same month more than 50 countries asked [JURIST report] the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court [official website].

The ICTR was established by UN Security Council in 1994 to investigate and prosecute alleged prominent players of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Since then, the ICTR has heard more than 70 cases [ICTR case index], and is set to dissolve in 2014 after hearing its final 15 appeals in light of the completion of its trial mandate. In December, the ICTR convicted [JURIST report] former Rwandan minister Augustin Ngirabatware and sentenced him to 35 years in prison to conclude the tribunal's final trial. Ngirabatware was found guilty on charges of genocide, incitement to commit genocide and rape as a crime against humanity. Also in December, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution to extend the terms of five judges [JURIST report] at the tribunal. In July the ICTR transferred four genocide convicts to the Republic of Mali [JURIST report] to serve their sentences. A month earlier the tribunal transferred the case of Aloys Ndimbati [JURIST report], a former local government official in Rwanda who has been charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and persecution, to the authorities of the Republic of Rwanda. Earlier that month Bernard Munyagishari's case was the fifth to be transferred [JURIST report] to the country's court system.

Due to litigation challenging existing methods of execution and due to other factors, both judicial and non-judicial, that have affected the availability of certain drugs, the Commissioner has recently found it necessary or wise to make repeated changes to the lethal injection procedures employed by the Department. We conclude that it was not unreasonable for the Board to entrust the specific topics involved in the management of executions to the Commissioner under the statutory and constitutional mandates that already apply to him rather than to give him detailed and rigid directives through rules.

In July the Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously granted a stay of execution [JURIST report] Hill 90 minutes before he was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. The court granted the stay to consider an appeal by Hill, 52, regarding the recent change by the Georgia Department of Corrections to its lethal injection protocol, the traditional three-drug "cocktail" having been replaced with a single dose of the sedative pentobarbital. In a separate order the court also denied Hill's request to hear his appeal of a Butts County Superior Court ruling, which held that Hill had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt [JURIST report] that he is mentally disabled, and that the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard itself is constitutional. Terrica Ganzy [official profile], Staff Attorney for the Southern Center for Human Rights [advocacy website], argued that Warren Hill was improperly sentenced to death [JURIST comment] and that Georgia should adopt a "preponderance of evidence" standard for mentally disabled claims in capital offense cases.

In releasing its annual World Report [JURIST report] last week, Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] stated that Vietnam's government has been "systematically suppressing freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and persecuting those who question government policies, expose official corruption, or call for democratic alternatives to one-party rule" during the last few years of growing domestic dissatisfaction. Also last week Vietnamese authorities released and deported [JURIST report] Vietnamese-American pro-democracy activist Nguyen Quoc Quan after nine months of detention. Quan was arrested [JURIST report] on terrorism charges for planning protests in support of a banned group of US exiles. Last month Vietnam convicted [JURIST report] 14 bloggers associated with Viet Tan of subversion issued prison sentences ranging from 3 to 13 years. In September a court in Vietnam sentenced [JURIST report] a number of bloggers for anti-state propaganda for defaming the government.