The DOJ alleged that Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster conspired to fix the prices of e-books in response to Amazon's discount pricing strategy. The DOJ brought the suit in April, and the court denied a motion to dismiss [JURIST reports] in May. Commentators had been very mixed in response to the proposed settlement agreement. Some commentators have suggested that the DOJ's lawsuit is merely "superficial" [JURIST op-ed] and that the effect of the agency agreements may actually have been a net-positive to consumers if Amazon was selling e-books as loss leaders in order to drive the sale of Kindles. Other commentators, however, state that commentators against the settlement agreement and the defendants' arguments are based on a premise that competition is wrong [JURIST op-ed].

The plight of the internally displaced harkens back to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina as well as the more recent Fukushima tsunami and nuclear disaster. Following the Hurricane Katrina fallout in 2005 the US Human Rights Network urged [JURIST report] that the rights of the hundreds of thousands of hurricane evacuees—in legal terms, not refugees forced out of their own country by persecution, but rather IDPs forced from their homes inside a country—be fully respected according to the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. In 2004 the UN special envoy for tsunami recovery following the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake commended [JURIST report] the efforts made by the affected countries for providing the basic rights under the UN Guiding Principles, but nonetheless urged leadership to do more to protect human rights.

The shortage of sodium thiopental, a drug used in the lethal injection process, in the US has caused several states to modify lethal injection protocol. In August, a state judge in Arkansas ruled [JURIST report] that a state law provision allowing "any other chemical or chemicals" to be used for lethal injections violates the constitution's protection against cruel and unusual punishment. In March of last year, two Texas inmates requested stays on their executions [USA Today report] to obtain more information on the new protocol and possibly challenge the protocol as unconstitutional. Texas acknowledged that its supply of sodium thiopental had an expiration date of March 1. Arizona, Georgia and Oklahoma have faced similar challenges and are seeking to substitute the sodium thiopental used in the lethal injection "cocktail" with pentobarbital. Kentucky and Tennessee surrendered supplies of sodium thiopental [NYT report] to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after the agency seized Georgia's supply in order to investigate whether the drug was properly imported.

Habre fled to Senegal after being deposed in 1990 and denies charges of killing and torturing tens of thousands of his opponents after coming to power in a bloody coup in 1982. The AU began talks with Senegal to come up with a plan for Habre's trial after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled [JURIST report] in July that Senegal must either try Habre promptly or extradite him to Belgium for trial. The court's legally binding order also noted that Senegal had failed to make serious efforts to prosecute Habre, who has been been under house arrest there since 2005. In March lawyers for the Belgian government asked [JURIST report] the ICJ to force Senegal to bring Habre to trial in Belgium. In July 2011 Senegal reversed its decision to deport Habre [JURIST report] back to Chad after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay warned of possible torture. That month Pillay issued the plea [JURIST report] to stay Habre's deportation to Chad after the nation's courts sentenced him to death in absentia.

Turkey's anti-terrorism legislation has been shrouded in controversy for some time. The Council of Europe [official website] on Tuesday urged Turkey [JURIST report] to move more quickly in its efforts to reform legislation. Council Secretary-General Thorbjorn Jagland [official profile], speaking at a conference in Ankara, emphasized the importance of reform in the laws governing freedom of expression and anti-terrorism. In January a Turkish Court charged nine lawyers [JURIST report] for membership in an outlawed group under Turkey's anti-terrorism laws. The lawyers, including some human rights advocates, are accused of being associated with the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (RPLP), a group that advocates for a Marxist state and has claimed responsibility for violence and assassinations in the country since the 1970s. Most recently, the group claimed responsibility [NYT report] for a suicide bombing attack on the US Embassy in Ankara. The UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) [official website] criticized Turkey in November for prosecuting activists [JURIST report] under the country's vague counter-terrorism law.

Earlier this week Amnesty International and the Open Society Justice Initiative [advocacy websites] urged Haiti to ensure that Duvalier is brought to justice [JURIST report]. Last February the US State Department [official website] dispatched [JURIST report] a team of international law experts to Haiti to assess how the country could reinforce the power and independence of its judiciary. That same month, UN Independent Expert Micael Forst said that Haiti is making significant progress [JURIST report] with respect to the rule of law, citing improvements such as the establishment of judicial offices and the adoption of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [text; PDF]. In January 2012 a Haitian judge convicted [JURIST report] eight police officers of shooting and killing at least 10 prisoners following the January 2010 earthquake. In December 2011 the UN called for an investigation [JURIST report] into alleged torture and unlawful killings perpetrated by the Haitian National Police (HNP) [official website, in French].

Earlier this week, the High Court of Australia unanimously ruled [JURIST report] that Google did not engage in misleading or deceptive conduct in violation of Section 52 of the Trade Practices Act of 1974 [text, PDF]. Google is also involved in several different patent disputes with multiple other companies around the world. Last month Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility filled a motion [JURIST report] with the International Trade Commission to drop two key patents from it case against Microsoft. The claim alleged that Microsoft infringed on Motorola Mobility's patents related to technology used in the Xbox. The withdrawal of the claim was required in an agreement Google made with the Federal Trade Commission. In December, the ITC ruled [JURIST report] for Apple in a patent dispute with Google.