Motorola has been very active in German courts both seeking to protect and asserting its intellectual property. In September Apple [corporate website] won an injunction against Motorlola for infringing EP2126788 [JURIST report] which covered "rubber-banding" technology in scrolling lists. In July a German court granted an injunction for Microsoft against Motorola in a patent infringement case over EP0618540 [JURIST report] which involved technology relating to common names for long and short file allocation tables. Also in July a German court dismissed a patent infringement suit by Microsoft over EP1304891 [JURIST report] which monitors different functions on a smartphone and provides such information to other applications utilizing them. Another case that was brought by Microsoft against Motorola Mobility involving a patent on system input methods is postponed to September 20. In February Apple sued Motorola in the US District Court for the Southern District of California [official website] seeking an injunction [JURIST report] to stop Motorola from bringing patent claims against Apple in Germany, alleging that the German suit violates a licensing agreement between Motorola and Qualcomm.

The Ukrainian parliament gave the bill preliminary approval [JURIST report] earlier this week. The draft law is modeled off of a law in St. Petersburg, Russia [JURIST report] that imposes fines against people convicted of promoting homosexuality, including gays or lesbians who are open about their sexuality. The first conviction [JURIST report] under the law occurred in April, when a gay rights activist was fined for picketing in front of city hall with a sign that said "homosexuality is not perversion." LGBT rights activists continue to challenge the law [JURIST report]. The Russian parliament introduced a similar law [JURIST report] shortly after the St. Petersburg law passed, but it has yet to pass.

The three Kenyans suffered horrific ordeals [Reuters report]. Paulo Nzili, 85, was captured on his way home from defecting from the Mau Mau and castrated by in British custody. Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, was never a member of Mau Mau but spent nine years in detention without charge, suffering severe beatings that often killed his fellow detainees. Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, was sexually abused and raped while in detention when she was only about 15 years old. There had also been a fourth claimant, Susan Ciong'ombe Ngondi, but she died two years ago at the age of 71.

The government had argued that too much time had passed for there to be a fair trial, but in July 2011 McCombe rejected the contention [JURIST report] that the alleged abuses occurred too long ago and that all liability of the colonial administration passed to the Kenyan government upon gaining independence in 1963. The Kenyans first sued the British government [JURIST report] in June 2009 to bring to court their allegations that they were abused in British Colonial prison camps. The Mau Mau rebellion was led by members of the largely impoverished Kikuyu tribe [Africa Guide backgrounder] and lasted from 1952-1960. The uprising was notorious for atrocities committed by both the rebels and British colonial forces. Official casualty figures eventually set the number of European deaths at 32 and the number of Kenyans killed at just over 11,000. Approximately 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the crackdown [AP report] against the Mau Mau, according to the Kenya Human Rights Commission [advocacy website].

The ECHR's decision in April marked a change in position for the court from its position two years ago, when it stayed the extradition [JURIST report] of four of the terrorism suspects to the US, holding that potential punishment could violate European Convention on Human Rights [text] provisions on the prohibition of torture and inhumane or degrading treatment. The UK High Court approved the extradition [JURIST report] of Aswat and Ahmad to the US in 2006. Aswat is wanted in the US on suspicion of setting up a terrorist training camp and Ahmad is wanted for conspiring to kill Americans and running a website used to fund terrorists and recruit al Qaeda members. The extraditions were approved only after the US offered assurances that it would not seek the death penalty, try the suspects before military tribunals or declare them enemy combatants. A British court approved the extradition [JURIST report] of al-Masri in 2007. Hamza, who is currently serving a seven-year sentence in the UK [JURIST report] for urging his followers to kill Jews and other non-Muslims, faces US charges of attempting to establish terrorist training camps in Oregon, conspiring to take hostages in Yemen, and helping terror training in Afghanistan.

Certainly, the NVRA does not require the State to idle on the sidelines until a non-citizen violates the law before the State can act. And surely the NVRA does not require a state to wait until after that critical juncture—when the vote has been cast and the harm has been fully realized—to address what it views as nothing short of "voter fraud" ... The Court finds that the Secretary has a compelling interest in ensuring that the voting rights of citizens are not diluted by the casting of votes by non-citizens.

Voting rights [JURIST backgrounder] remain a contentious issue in the US, particularly in the run-up to the November presidential election. A judge for the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court issued a preliminary injunction [JURIST report] on Tuesday preventing Pennsylvania's voter identification law from taking effect for the upcoming presidential election. Also on Tuesday, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced that the state's voter ID law will not take effect [JURIST report]] before the November 6 election.There are now 32 US states [NCSL backgrounder] that require voters to present some form of ID at the polls, but the issue remains controversial.

By prescribing what can and cannot appear on retail packaging the TPP Act affects that packaging and those who produce and sell the tobacco products. But to characterise this effect as "control" diverts attention from the fundamental question: does the TPP Act give the Commonwealth a legal interest in the packaging or create a legal relation between the Commonwealth and the packaging that the law describes as "property"? Compliance with the TPP Act creates no proprietary interest ... The TPP Act is not a law by which the Commonwealth acquires any "interest in property, however slight or insubstantial it may be" ... The arguments advanced by the tobacco companies are answered by the logically anterior conclusion that the TPP Act effects no acquisition of property.

Tobacco regulations have long been a contentious subject. Also in August the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] ruled that tobacco companies do not need to print graphic warnings of the dangers of smoking on cigarette packages. In July the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] struck down [JURIST report] a law requiring stores todisplay graphic anti-tobacco adswhere tobacco products are sold. In March the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that graphic cigarette label warnings [JURIST news archive] are constitutional. The court decided unanimously that the portions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA) [HR 1256 text] designed to limit the tobacco industry's ability to advertise to children, including a ban on distributing clothing and goods with logos or brand names, as well as sponsorship of cultural, athletic and social events requiring cigarette packaging and advertisements, is a valid restriction of commercial speech. President Barack Obama signed [JURIST report] the FSPTCA into law in 2009, granting the FDA certain authority to regulate manufactured tobacco products.

Last month the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution [JURIST report] extending the mission of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) in Syria. The panel of independent experts is charged with investigating the human rights situation in the country amidst the prolonged and violent conflict between government and opposition forces. The COI last week testified before the Human Rights Council that human rights violations in Syria were increasing in severity and number [JURIST report]. Chair of the COI Paulo Pinheiro stated that both sides of the Syrian conflict are committing war crimes and that government forces are committing crimes against humanity. He said that the government was using regular bombing of residential neighborhoods via both artillery shelling and airstrikes and mechanized infantry to clear out anti-government groups.

Last month the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit suspended litigation [JURIST report] between the Authors Guild [advocacy website] and Google pending an appeal of a May ruling allowing a class action lawsuit [JURIST report] over Google's book-scanning initiative. Both sides have tried to resolve the dispute without litigation, but their settlement agreement was rejected [JURIST report] by Circuit Judge Denny Chin in March 2011. The agreement was reached in 2008 between Google and plaintiffs including the Guild, who brought the copyright suit [JURIST reports] in 2005.