Just last week, Chevron filed [JURIST report] a similar appeal [text, PDF, in Spanish] with Ecuador's National Court of Justice to reconsider the original decision [press release] by an Ecuadorian judge requiring the oil company to pay roughly $18 billion in damages for its role in polluting the Amazon. Specifically, Chevron argued that the judge's decision violated Ecuador's constitution because the court failed to correct or punish the alleged fraud and corruption committed by plaintiffs' attorneys. Chevron also contended that because it inherited the case from Texaco, an oil company who was released from such liability by Ecuador in the 1990s, it too should be released from liability. The judgment was originally upheld in January [JURIST report] by a three-judge panel of the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbios in Lago Agrio, Ecuador. Though the fine was initially set at $8.6 billion [JURIST report], it was later more than doubled for Chevron's refusal to pay "moral reparations" to the Ecuadorian government, as required by the original ruling. The Amazon Defense Coalition [advocacy website], the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, have said that the first judgment was a reaffirmation of how Chevron's greed and criminal misconduct in polluting the region has led to death and disease. Damages were initially awarded last February by the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbios which found that Texaco, acquired by Chevron in 2001, polluted large areas of the country's rain forest.

The State's legitimate governmental interests outweigh appellant's reduced expectation of privacy following a misdemeanor conviction arising out of the same set of circumstances as his felony charge. We conclude that the physical intrusion of Johnson's bodily integrity to acquire the DNA sample is minimal, especially when compared to the other intrusions Johnson is subjected to as part of his probation.

In August 2011 a California Appeals Court struck down the state law [JURIST report] that required DNA samples be taken broadly from any adult arrested or charged with a felony. US Attorney General Eric Holder instructed federal prosecutors in November 2010 to use DNA evidence as much as possible [JURIST report], reversing the Bush administration policy. The US District Court for the Eastern District of California upheld the constitutionality [JURIST report] of mandatory DNA collection for all persons arrested or detained under federal authority in May 2009.

Wuterich's guilty plea marks the end of the final court-martial resulting from a five-year investigation into the 2005 Haditha killings. Wuterich was denied a motion to dismiss [JURIST report] his charges in 2010. His trial was postponed in 2008 [JURIST report] after a judge decided to throw out a subpoena for unaired footage of a CBS interview with Wuterich that prosecutors believed could have proven his guilt. Charges against Lt. Colonel Jeffrey Chessani [JURIST news archive] were dropped [JURIST report] in June 2008, the same month 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson [JURIST news archive] was acquitted [JURIST report] of all charges against him relating to the incident. In August 2007, charges against Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt and Capt. Randy W. Stone were dismissed [JURIST report]. In 2007, an official report on the Haditha incident by US Army Major General Eldon Bargewell showed that there was "serious misconduct" [JURIST report] at all levels of the chain of command.

The [International Committee of the Red Cross] visited over 8,500 detainees in approximately 60 places of detention between March and December 2011. The majority of detainees are accused of being Gaddafi loyalists and include a large number of sub-Saharan African nationals. The lack of oversight by the central authorities creates an environment conducive to torture and ill-treatment. My staff have received alarming reports that this is happening in places of detention that they have visited.

Allegations of war crimes and human rights violations have been widespread in the aftermath of the Libyan conflict [JURIST backgrounder]. Earlier this month Middle East rights groups alleged human rights violations [JURIST report] and that all parties involved, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) [official website], committed acts ranging from use of excessive force against protesters to cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners during detention. They also urged support to the Libyan authorities in the implementation of section 12 of the UN Security Council Resolution 2009 [text in PDF]. In September 2011, the Libyan NTC vowed to investigate allegations of human rights after Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] published a report [JURIST report] alleging that both sides of the Libya conflict are responsible for human rights abuses and warning the NTC to act quickly to investigate these allegations. In August, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) [advocacy website] reported [text, PDF] Libyan troops used children as human shields [JURIST report] to deter attacks by NATO. That same month, the Libyan Prime Minister Al Baghdad Ali Al-Mahmoudi requested that the UN create a "high-level commission" to investigate alleged human rights abuses [JURIST report] by NATO.

In December of last year, a federal judge blocked [JURIST report] portions of the South Carolina law. Judge Richard Gergel blocked the provision that requires police to check immigration status, finding, "[t]his state-mandated scrutiny is without consideration of federal enforcement priorities and unquestionably vastly expands the persons targeted for immigration enforcement action. He also blocked the provision that outlaws harboring or transporting an illegal immigrant, finding a likelihood of irreparable harm. Similar immigration laws are being challenged throughout the US. Also in December, Alabama and Georgia filed motions in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] seeking to stay proceedings [JURIST report] on challenges to their immigration laws pending the Supreme Court ruling in Arizona v. United States. A challenge is also pending to an immigration law in Utah, and an Indiana law has been blocked [JURIST reports] by a federal judge.

Romanian elections have garnered discontent in recent years. The high court declared [press release, PDF; in Romanian] incumbent Basescu winner of the country's disputed presidential election [JURIST report] in December 2009. The court unanimously rejected a complaint by Basescu's opponent, Social Democrat Mircea Geoana [campaign website, in Romanian], to declare the results of the runoff election invalid because of allegations of voter fraud and bribery. After the first round of elections in November produced no clear winner, Basescu and Geoana faced a runoff election. Official results showed that Basescu had won by a mere 70,000 votes, garnering 50.3 percent of the total votes, and the court ordered election officials to recount [JURIST report] 138,000 voided ballots. In 2007, Basescu was reinstated [JURIST report] after the constitutional court certified results of a referendum where 74 percent of voters rejected Basescu's impeachment [JURIST report].

Earlier this week, convicted Serbian war criminal Radovan Stankovic [JURIST report] was arrested in BiH after being on the run since May 2007 when he escaped from a Bosnian prison. Stankovic was convicted of multiple war crimes [JURIST report] in 2006, including rape, enslavement and torture. Last month, the US extradited Rasema Handanovic [JURIST report], a woman accused of killing Bosnian Croat civilians during the Bosnian Civil War. A number of cases have been opened in relation to the Bosnian Civil War. The Court of BiH confirmed the indictment [JURIST report] of former police officer Bozidar Kuvelja in March for his role in a 1995 massacre. In February, French authorities arrested Milorad Momic [JURIST report] under an international arrest warrant for his suspected involvement in war crimes. Last August, Spanish officials extradited accused Montenegrin war criminal [JURIST report] Veselin Vlahovic, known as the "monster of Grbavica," to Sarajevo.