Although U.S. government officials, including the President and the Secretary of Defense, have made statements on the record confirming the existence of the targeted killing program, the government has not disclosed the process by which it adds names to so-called "killed lists;" the standards under which it determines which Americans may be put to death; or the evidentiary bases on which it concludes that those standards satisfied in any particular case.

Targeted killings have been a controversial topic [JURIST comment] during the current war on terror. In December, the New York Times filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] alleging the government violated the FOIA in refusing to release legal memoranda related to targeted killings of terror suspects. The suit relates to the death of the US-born radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] who was killed in a US drone strike [JURIST report] in Yemen in September 2011. An Obama administration legal memorandum [JURIST report] from 2010 found that the killing of US citizen and senior al Qaeda [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] leader al-Awlaki would only be legal if it were not feasible to take al-Awlaki alive. The memo followed months of legal debate regarding the decision to kill a US citizen without first having a trial.

The ICTY has been the subject of copious international attention recently. On Monday, former Serb nationalist politician and war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj [official website, in Serbian; JURIST news archive] sued the ICTY [JURIST report] for $2.6 million in damages for allegedly unreasonable delays in his trial. In December, the ICTY convicted former Yugoslav intelligence officer Dragomir Pecanac of contempt [JURIST report] for failing to testify before the tribunal. Also in December, former Serbian general and alleged war criminal Ratko Mladic [ICTY backgrounder; JURIST news archive], testifying before the ICTY, pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to murdering over 30 Muslim prisoners. Earlier in December, the ICTY, along with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website; JURIST news archive] reported progress [JURIST report] to the UN Security Council [official website]. During this meeting, the ICTY reported that its last two wanted fugitives had been arrested, meaning none of the 161 persons wanted by the tribunal [materials] remains at large.

The SCSL heard closing arguments in March 2011. Closing arguments were originally set to begin a month earlier, but were postponed pending an appeals chamber decision to accept the defense's final written brief [JURIST reports]. The trial chamber originally disregarded the brief because it was 20 days late. Taylor has denied the charges [JURIST report] against him, which include murder, rape, sexual slavery and acts of terrorism stemming from from a "campaign to terrorize the civilian population" of Sierra Leone [JURIST news archive]. Taylor's defense lawyers opened their case [JURIST report] in July 2009 and have claimed that he could not have commanded rebel forces in Sierra Leone while acting as the president of Liberia. His trial continued after the court denied his motion for acquittal [JURIST report] in May 2009.

In November of last year the Swedish Svea Appeals Court [materials] upheld [JURIST report] the convictions of the Pirate Bay founders. In April 2009 the website operators were sentenced to one year in prison for abetting copyright infringement [judgment, PDF, in Swedish; JURIST report]. In June 2009 several Hollywood production companies filed suit [JURIST report] in Sweden against the operators of The Pirate Bay, seeking an injunction. The US companies, including Disney, Universal and Columbia Pictures, filed a writ to sue in the Stockholm District Court, requesting that the court order the owners to cease and desist operations.

Great Britain has been the target of terror plots in the years since the 2005 London transit bombings [JURIST report; JURIST news archive], but has been proactive about prompt apprehension of terror suspects. The 2005 attacks killed 52 people and injured 700 others. In October 2010, a UK court began inquests into the bombings [JURIST report] to determine whether more lives could have been saved with a quicker response. In July 2010, the UK Woolwich Crown Court sentenced three British Muslims to a minimum of 20 years in prison after being convicted [JURIST reports] and sentenced to life in prison under the Terrorism Act of 2006 for involvement with a 2006 plot to blow up numerous transatlantic flights.

Google has had several legal battles in the last year, with consumer privacy rights often at issue. In August the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced that the agency had reached a $500 million settlement [JURIST report] with Google for permitting Canadian pharmaceutical companies to advertise to and target US consumers. In July a federal judge extended settlement negotiations [JURIST report] over a 2005 copyright suit filed against Google over its Google Books [corporate website] book scanning project. Also in July another federal judge ruled that Google could appeal a decision permitting a wiretapping lawsuit [JURIST report] over Google's Street View [corporate website] service to proceed. Google was accused of violating user privacy by using WiFi networks to collect data for the service, a charge that came as a result of a multistate investigation that began in June of 2010. There have been international rulings on the Street View service as well. A Swiss court ruled the service constituted a violation of privacy, while a German court ruled it did not [JURIST reports].