A UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) expert on Monday urged Myanmar’s military government to release 2,202 political prisoners . Tomas Ojea Quintana , a UN Special Rapporteur, called for the release of the “prisoners of conscience,” many of whom, according to Quintana, suffer from health problems as a result of the harsh detention conditions. Quintana [...]

The Council of the EU adopted a decision Monday to institute sanctions against the Ivory Coast. There has been unrest in the country since elections were held at the beginning of this month. Alassane Ouattara defeated incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, but Gbagbo has refused to concede victory to Ouattrara. According to the EU’s statement: The Council [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled Monday that the minimum coverage provision of the recently enacted health care reform law is unconstitutional. Judge Henry Hudson, who had previously denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit , found that an individual’s decision to purchase health insurance is beyond [...]

Irving Picard, the trustee charged with recovering money for the victims of the Bernard Madoff scandal, has filed close to 60 lawsuits in the past three weeks attempting to recover more than $40 billion from numerous banks, hedge funds and individuals. The influx of litigation coincided with the Saturday deadline for seeking compensation. Picard has [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday divided 4-4 in Costco Wholesale Corp v. Omega, SA on the issue of copyright protections for imported goods. The case presented the question of whether the first-sale doctrine , which provides that the owner of any particular copy “lawfully made under this title” may resell that good without the [...]

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on Monday filed a complaint in a Malaysian court over a WikiLeaks cable published by Australian newspapers stating he had engaged in sodomy. The leaked US diplomatic cable claimed Australia’s Office of National Assessments had concluded, in agreement with Singapore’s Intelligence Agency, that the sodomy charges against Ibrahim were the [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Washington on Friday dismissed a patent infringement lawsuit by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen against Apple, eBay, Google and eight other corporations. According to the complaint , which also named AOL, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube , the companies misappropriated [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday reversed its prior decision and allowed a suit by the heirs of victims of the Armenian genocide to proceed. The court decided 2-1 to withdraw its August ruling , which found California Civil Procedure Code § 354.4 unconstitutional because it interfered with foreign relations [...]

A Sudanese civil society group filed a lawsuit Sunday challenging the actions of the commission handling the January 9 self-determination referendum in southern Sudan. The challenge, filed with the Sudanese Constitutional Court, alleges that the commission violated the procedures for the referendum, set out in the 2009 Southern Sudan Referendum Act and the Sudanese Constitution [...]

The First Municipal Court in Belgrade on Friday acquitted 10 men suspected of helping former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic evade arrest. Mladic is one of two high-level targets still at large under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity [...]