In March 2010 the Turkish government indicted 33 defendants [JURIST report] on charges of attempting to overthrow the government and establish military rule, and Turkish police detained 20 people [JURIST report] in connection with the Ergenekon plot. Turkish prosecutors charged [JURIST report] an army general and a state prosecutor with belonging to Ergenekon and plotting to overthrow the AKP. In February of that year more than 40 military officers were arrested and charged in a separate coup attempt [JURIST report], the so-called Sledgehammer plot [Al Jazeera backgrounder], to provoke a military confrontation with Greece and take advantage of the ensuing chaos. Trials against the Ergenekon group started [JURIST report] in October 2008, and nearly 400 people have been charged in connection with it. The prosecution of military officials comes amid a larger effort by the AKP to reform the Turkish legal system as a step toward EU accession [materials; CFR backgrounder]. In May 2010, Turkey's opposition Republican People's Party [party website, in Turkish] filed suit [JURIST report] in the country's Constitutional Court in an effort to halt proposed constitutional amendments that would reform the judiciary allowing military and government officials to be tried in civilian court.

The Government of Uganda must protect all people against threats, violence and harassment irrespective of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. [...] The Government's claimed opposition to the Bill needs to be supported through their actions. The Ugandan government must allow legitimate, peaceful gatherings of human rights defenders, including those working on LGBT rights.

Uganda faces an ongoing struggle with anti-gay sentiment in the country. In November the Ugandan High Court sentenced a man to 30 years in prison for beating to death prominent gay rights activist David Kato. In January 2011 the Ugandan High Court issued a permanent injunction and awarded damages to three plaintiffs who were among 100 people alleged to be homosexuals by the Ugandan tabloid newspaper, The Rolling Stone. In January 2010 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay criticized the original anti-gay legislation, saying that it could harm Uganda's reputation internationally. In February 2010, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly denounced the proposed legislation [JURIST reports].

The decision included particularly strong language supporting absolute sovereign immunity for tribes to engage in commerce using the Internet. [T]ribal immunity applies to a tribe's governmental and commercial activities alike ... [n]ot only has every federal court of appeals addressing this issue so concluded, but the United States itself has also conceded that a tribe does not lose its immunity simply by engaging in a business through a corporate entity.

Tribal sovereign immunity has faced legal challenges in recent years. In 2011, the US Supreme Court [official website] remanded the case [JURIST report] of Madison County v. Oneida Indian Nation [docket; cert. petition, PDF] to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website], ordering the lower court to reconsider its ruling. The Second Circuit had found that tribal sovereign immunity prevented county authorities from foreclosing on property belonging to the Oneida Indian Nation [official website]. In 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled that tribal sovereign immunity applies [JURIST report] to lawsuits brought in federal court dealing with the profit-making businesses of Indian tribes. In 2007, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia [official website] upheld [decision, PDF] a 2004 ruling that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) [official website] had jurisdiction over tribunal businesses including casinos, placing the tribes under the National Labor Relations Act [text].

Norway's terror laws have sparked controversy recently. Last week, JURIST guest columnist Per Lægreid of the University of Bergen argued [JURIST op-ed] that Norway's terror laws should not be extended to individuals planning terrorist attacks, and when choosing between preventing terror and protecting civil liberties, the latter should prevail. In January, a Norwegian court issued the first conviction under Norway's anti-terror law [JURIST report], convicting two men who were accused of planning an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Nashiri has been at the center of controversy for many years. In November, Nashiri made his first court appearance [JURIST report] for war crimes relating to the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. In May, Nashiri's lawyers filed suit against Poland [JURIST report] over his alleged torture in that country. In September 2010, a human rights group, Open Society Justice Initiative [advocacy website], filed a request [JURIST report] with Polish prosecutors for an investigation into the detention and torture of Nashiri in a secret CIA prison.

The growing unrest in Syria has drawn copious international attention recently. Earlier this week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, called for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Pillay urged an investigation of Syrian government and military officials for possible crimes against humanity. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) claimed earlier in February that the past 11 months of violence in Syria have led to the deaths of hundreds of children. In January, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon demanded [JURIST reports] that al-Assad end violence against Syrian civilians. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reports that more than 5,000 people have died since anti-government protests began last March.

Issues surrounding same-sex marriage [JURIST backgrounder] continue to occupy discussions among lawmakers and judges. On Tuesday the New Jersey Senate voted to approve a bill [JURIST report] that, if passed, would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed legislation [JURIST report] Monday legalizing same-sex marriage, making Washington the eighth jurisdiction in the US to offer marriage to same-sex couples. Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional [JURIST report]. In January, an Iowa District Court ordered that the Iowa Department of Public Health include both names [JURIST report] of married same-sex parents on children's birth certificates.

The problem of recruitment of child soldiers [JURIST news archives] is ongoing in many nations. In 2006, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] formally charged [JURIST report] Thomas Lubanga, founder of the militant Union of Patriotic Congolese, accusing him of enlisting child soldiers in the violence-plagued Ituri district of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). His trial began in January 2009 after being delayed for evidentiary reasons and was halted soon after when one of the child witnesses recanted his testimony [JURIST reports] that Lubanga had recruited him for the militia. In August of last year, the ICC concluded [JURIST report] Lubanga's trial after two years. A verdict is expected in the case early this year.

The only goal or principle of sentencing that would arguably be met by the imposition of this sentence would be denunciation and general deterrence. However, the case law is clear that general deterrence alone cannot justify the imposition of a sentence that is otherwise grossly disproportionate to what an offender deserves. To take that principle to the extreme, a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for shoplifting would no doubt act as a general deterrent, but it would shock the public conscience to impose such an onerous punishment, for example, on a young single mother with no criminal record who steals a loaf of bread from Walmart.

Mandatory minimum sentences have also been and issue in the United States, where the US Supreme Court issued a ruling [JURIST report] in May of 2010 allowing mandatory minimums but elevating the standards of proof required in federal gun crimes. Some commentators have suggested [JURIST op-ed] that mandatory minimum sentences should also be disfavored because of their tendency to increase the load of prisons on governmental budgets and unnecessarily increase the non-violent prisoner population.

The laws of this Commonwealth shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this Commonwealth, subject only to the Constitution of the United States and decisional interpretations thereof by the United States Supreme Court and specific provisions to the contrary in the statutes and constitution of this Commonwealth.

The Virginia Senate recently approved legislation requiring a woman to have an ultrasound before an abortion [JURIST report]. Last November, Mississippi voters rejected a ballot measure [Initiative 26 materials] that would have amended the state constitution to define the word "person" or "persons" to include "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof." The initiative, which would have given fetuses rights from the moment of conception, was defeated by more than 55 percent of the state's voters. The primary goal of the legislation was an attempt to make abortion illegal on the theory that a woman's right to choose an abortion cannot outweigh the fetus' right to life. Colorado voters rejected a similar state constitutional amendment in November 2010. JURIST Guest Columnist Caitlin Borgmann [profile] argues that redefining personhood is just one of several approaches aimed at curtailing abortion [JURIST op-ed].