International humanitarian law, commonly referred to as the laws of war, imposes legal obligations upon parties to an armed conflict to reduce unnecessary suffering and to protect civilians and other non-combatants. All armed forces involved in an armed conflict, including non-state armed groups such as the KIA, are obligated to abide by international humanitarian law. Individuals who deliberately or recklessly commit serious violations of international humanitarian law can be prosecuted in domestic or international courts for war crimes.

This is not the first time that Myanmar's army has been criticized for abuses against civilians. In November, Human rights group Partners Relief and Development [advocacy website] issued [JURIST report] a report [text, PDF, graphic content] which alleged that the army may be committing war crimes including torture and forced labor against ethnic communities in Kachin state. Earlier of that month, however, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon [official profile] congratulated [JURIST report] President Thien Sein [BBC backgrounder] on the country's ongoing reforms toward democracy. In August, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar urged [JURIST report] the government of Myanmar to investigate human rights abuses and improve its rights record.

Google's new privacy policy took affect on March 1 despite the claim by EU Justice Commissioner Vice-President Viviane Reding [official website] that the policy violates European law [JURIST report]. The policy aspects receiving criticism include data collection sharing among Google services like YouTube, G-mail, Google Maps and Blogger, as well as the personalizing of advertisements based on an individual's search history. EU data authorities are chiefly concerned about this sharing of personal information and its compliance under European data protection legislation [EC materials]. In addition to its international criticism, Google's new privacy policy has also been scrutinized by some in the US. In February, the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] dismissed [JURIST report] a lawsuit filed by consumer privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) [advocacy website] asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official website] to block Google's then-proposed changes. Also in February, the National Association of Attorneys [official website] sent a letter of concern to Google, and three US Representatives asked the FTC to investigate [JURIST reports] the new privacy policy. These concerns were raised despite the company issuing a letter in January [JURIST report] in response to similar consumer privacy concerns raised by other members of Congress. Like the CNIL, US Representatives sent Google CEO Larry Page a questionnaire [JURIST report] entailing the effects of the new privacy policy.

The court's ruling reversed the decision [text, PDF] of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. During oral arguments [JURIST report] in December, petitioner Mayo Collaborative argued that the respondent's patent attempts to protect a "law of nature" instead of the "application of a law of nature," which restricts doctors' ability to make treatment judgments based on patients' reactions to drugs. Respondent Prometheus Labs argued that the courts have permitted similar patents in the past, that the current patent involves only a narrow range of drugs and that it will not prevent future improvements in the field. The Supreme Court accepted a case on this issue before in Laboratory Corp. of America v. Metabolite Laboratories [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report] but dismissed it as "improvidently granted" because the petitioner had not adequately preserved the question.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented and condemned widespread violations by Syrian government security forces and officials, including disappearances, use of torture and forced televised confessions, arbitrary detentions, indiscriminate shelling of neighborhoods, and deaths in custody under torture. Now, in the face of evidence of human rights abuses by armed opposition members, Human Rights Watch calls on the leadership of leading opposition groups including the Syrian National Council (SNC) and its Military Bureau to condemn such practices by the armed opposition and to work to prevent such unlawful practices.

Human rights groups have closely scrutinized the situation in Syria since the government began its crackdown against protesters last year. Last week, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] asserted that the Syrian government has systematically tortured its citizens [JURIST report]. Earlier last week, a UN expert on Syria declared that the human rights situation in Syria is worsening [JURIST report]. Earlier in March the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] passed a resolution [JURIST report] denouncing Syrian officials' crackdown on human rights. The resolution came on the heels of a demand for a cease-fire [JURIST report] by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official website] in late February. Earlier in February, the UN-appointed Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria accused the government of violating international human rights law [JURIST report] after finding that Syrian forces are engaging in torture and killings under orders from high level government officials.

The US drone strikes, an effort to counteract terrorist groups such as al Qaeda at the Pakistani-Afghanistan border, have created debate [JURIST op-ed] about their compliance with international laws. This month, a UK human rights group and law firm expressed its intention to bring claims [JURIST report] against the British government in assisting the US with the drone strikes against Pakistan which killed more than 40 people. In July, three Pakistani men filed a complaint [JURIST report] to arrest a former CIA legal counsel for authorizing an unmanned drone strikes. The Obama administration has defended [JURIST report] the legality of such use.

The US government's own reports document that the torture and inhumane treatment that Petitioners were subject to...was widespread and systemic throughout the US-run detention facilities in two countries. These same reports also document that the torture and inhumane treatment of detainees were the direct result of policies and practices promulgated and implemented at the highest levels of the US government.

Originally filed in federal court against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld [ABC news backgrounder], the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] in March 2007 dismissed [JURIST report] allegations of torture and inhumane treatment by US military personnel against Afghan and Iraqi detainees. There, the court upheld a long-established principle that government officials are immune from lawsuits stemming from actions taken within the scope of their official duties. This rationale was upheld [opinion, PDF] by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] in dismissing the case on appeal [JURIST report]. The suit was brought [JURIST report] by the ACLU and Human Rights First [advocacy website] against Rumsfeld and other military officials in March 2005.

[A]pplying the national average weekly wage for the fiscal year in which an employee becomes disabled advances the LHWCA's purpose to compensate disability, defined as "incapacity because of injury to earn the wages which the employee was receiving at the time of injury." Just as the LHWCA takes "the average weekly wage of the injured employee at the time of the injury" as the "basis upon which to compute compensation" it is logical to apply the national average weekly wage for the same point in time.

The court's ruling affirmed the decision [text, PDF] of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which ruled that Roberts misinterpreted the phrase "those newly awarded compensation during such period" and held that his compensation should be calculated based on the 2002 national average. The oral arguments [JURIST report] focused on the ambiguity of the word "award," which counsel for the petitioner maintained was the compensation resulting from an administrative compensation order. The state argued that it would not make sense to compensate an employee who has not received an administrative order differently that one who has.

If the ultrasound bill becomes law, Idaho will become the ninth state to require an ultrasound before an abortion. Two weeks ago, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell [official website] signed a hotly contested ultrasound bill into law [JURIST report]. In January the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] lifted an injunction [JURIST report] on a similar Texas law [JURIST report], allowing the law to be enforced. In October a judge for the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina [official website] issued a preliminary injunction [JURIST report], blocking part of the state's abortion law that required a physician to perform an ultrasound and describe the images to the patient. In March 2010 the Supreme Court of Oklahoma [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that a state law [SB 1878, DOC] imposing broad restrictions on abortion, including the requirement of an ultrasound prior to the procedure, violated that state's constitution.

Members of the Congolese defense and security forces have thus breached the international standards concerning the rights to life, physical integrity, liberty and security of person and in particular have violated Articles 16, 17 and 18 of the Congolese Constitution. ... The competent judicial authorities must ensure that members of the defense and security forces who are allegedly responsible for such violations be brought for their acts before the relevant authorities.

The DRC held its second democratic election [UN News Centre report] in November 2011. President Joseph Kabila [BBC profile] won the first election [JURIST report] in December 2006, becoming the first freely-elected president of the DRC since the country's independence from Belgium in 1960. Former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba [BBC profile] lost the 2006 election, after which his private militia force led a violent campaign against government troops until the DRC Supreme Court rejected his election challenge [JURIST report]. In the process, 30 people were killed and Bemba's supporters set fire to the Supreme Court [JURIST report]. Bemba was arrested [JURIST report] in May 2008 by Belgian authorities after the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] issued an arrest warrant for him on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with large-scale sexual offenses committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) between October 2002 and March 2003.

Where, under state law, claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel must be raised in an initial-review collateral proceeding, a procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing a substantial claim of ineffective assistance at trial if, in the initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in that proceeding was ineffective.

The court heard arguments [JURIST report] in the case in October. Martinez's attorney argued that the Ninth Circuit's ruling deprived his client of his constitutional right to counsel and that counsel should be extended to any "first-tier review issue," especially considering that evidence of attorney negligence could present itself years after the trial. The state of Arizona brought up the costs and impracticality of the rule: "This Court has never—has never said that every claim that can only be raised for the first time entitles someone to—to counsel. And that exception, that would—that would swallow the rule."

Madagascar has faced ongoing political unrest [Reuters timeline], and much of the international community has refused to recognize Rajoelina's regime. In November 2010, days after the attempted coup, voters in Madagascar approved a new constitution [JURIST report] that lowered the minimum age requirement for presidential candidates. Then 36-year-old Rajoelina, who came to power [JURIST report] in 2009 after ousting former president Marc Ravalomanana [BBC profile], organized the national referendum [Guardian report] to change the president's minimum age requirement from 40 to 35 years of age. The change secured Rajoelina's ability to run in the next presidential election. In August 2010, a Madagascar court sentenced [JURIST report] Ravalomanana to life in prison with hard labor for ordering the killing of opposition protesters in February 2009. Ravalomanana, who has been living in South Africa since his overthrow, was sentenced in absentia [BBC report] on charges of murder and accessory to murder in connection with the deaths of at least 30 people by his presidential guard.

The textual warnings in this case provide undisputed factual information about the health risks of using tobacco products. Similarly, for the reasons outlined above, there are myriad graphic images that would also provide such factual information. The health risks of smoking tobacco have been uncovered through scientific study. They are facts. Warnings about these risks—whether textual or graphic—can communicate these facts. In contrast, what constitutes a sexually explicit video game is a matter of personal taste and sexual morals that is necessarily based on opinion, as enshrined in the very definition of "sexually explicit" that Blagojevich examined. A required disclosure announcing that the game is sexually explicit communicates the government’s opinion that the game is sexually explicit. Blagojevich and the standards it articulates are inapplicable here.

Earlier this month, a judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the FDA regulation recommending warning labels is unconstitutional [JURIST report], issuing a permanent injunction. US President Barack Obama [official website] signed [JURIST report] the FSPTCA into law in 2009, granting the FDA certain authority to regulate manufactured tobacco products. The legislation heightens warning-label requirements, prohibits marketing "light cigarettes" as a healthier alternative and allows for the regulation of cigarette ingredients. The proposed implementation of new tobacco warning labels has also drawn criticism abroad. In Australia, Philip Morris has filed a complaint [JURIST report] to block new graphic warning label requirements [AUS Health Dept. backgrounder] recently enacted in that country.

The Supreme Court also heard oral arguments in Southern Union Co v. United States [transcript; JURIST report] on whether the Fifth and Sixth Amendment [text] principles that the Supreme Court established in Apprendi v. New Jersey [opinion] and its progeny apply to the imposition of criminal fines. Apprendi requires that "any fact" other than that of a prior conviction "that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt." In this case, a fine was determined based on the number of days an environmental violation occurred. The jury only returned a verdict of guilty, without determining the number of days. The judge later doled out a fine. The attorney for Southern Union Co. argued that when the judge fined his client an $18 million penalty rather than a statutory guideline of $50,000 for one day of violation, the court violated the "fundamental principle" of Apprendi by not allowing the jury to act as fact-finder: "every fact necessary to increase the punishment beyond that which is otherwise maximally provided for must be presented to the jury and must be decided by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt." The Solicitor General stated that since this type of case never required a jury finding of the number of days, there can be no "encroachment" on the jury function. He argued "with respect to fines, restitution and forfeiture, the jury was never given a substantive role at common law."

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