Transparency International and the UNCAC Coalition on Thursday urged the Mongolian parliament to veto a new bill that contains provisions granting amnesty to individuals being investigated for corruption. They argue that the passage of this law would allow for 45 out of 55 corruption cases brought by the Independent Agency against Corruption (IAAC) in Mongolia [...]

The High Court of Australia ruled Wednesday that the genetic material, BRCA1 , is not a “patentable invention” under §18(1)(a) of the Patents Act 1990 . Holding that allowing the gene to be patented would “involve an extension of the concept of a manner of manufacture,” the court said that this question was not “appropriate [...]

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence of Mumtaz Qadri, a former police guard respected within Pakistan for killing politician Salmaan Taseer over his support for a woman convicted of blasphemy. Taseer was governor of Punjar at the time of his death, and he was leaving a restaurant in January 2011 when he [...]

Burkina Faso general Gilbert Diendere was charged Tuesday for his role in last month’s coup attempt and will face a military tribunal. Diendere has been charged with 11 crimes including murder, collusion with foreign forces and threatening state security. Former foreign minister Djibril Bassole was also arrested for his involvement in last month’s coup although [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in three Kansas death penalty cases Wednesday. In two cases titled Kansas v. Carr , the court must determine whether the Eighth Amendment right to an “individualized sentencing” was violated by the decision not to sever the sentencing phase of a co-defendant’s trial. The Carr brothers were convicted [...]

California Governor Jerry Brown signed the Fair Pay Act into law on Tuesday, aimed at closing the wage gap between male and female employees. The bill will prohibit an employer from paying any employee a lower wage than that paid to employees of the opposite sex for substantially similar work. To be excepted from this [...]

The discrepancies between the US and Afghan accounts of the US-led bombing that struck a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last week call for an independent investigation by a never-before-used international body, said Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) , in a speech on Wednesday. Twenty-two people were killed in the MSF-operated hospital that [...]

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that the UK’s practice of administering a residence test to migrants for benefit payments is legal. The court, as it normally does, followed the opinion written by the advocate general at the European Court of Justice . The action was brought by citizens of other EU states who [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Lawson Huynh from St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2016, is the second author in a twelve-part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development. Huyhn discusses the impact a recent Supreme Court case might have on patentability of mobile apps and other IT creations [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday on two cases. In Ocasio v. US the court heard arguments on whether a conspiracy to commit extortion requires that the conspirators agree to obtain property from someone outside the conspiracy. The case involves a Baltimore police officer who was charged with conspiracy to extort for taking [...]