In 2010 a member of the UK coalition government indicated that McKinnon's extradition to the US would be delayed [JURIST report]. May considered an adjournment request from McKinnon's legal team and agreed to delay a scheduled judicial review in order to determine if he was medically fit for extradition. McKinnon was arrested by British police in 2002 and again in 2005. In 2008, the UK Parliament criticized extradition law after three UK Enron Bankers were extradited to the US [JURIST report]. Earlier this month the UK approved the extradition of terror suspects to the US [JURIST report] after ensuring the US would not seek the death penalty, try the defendants before military tribunals or declare them enemy combatants.

For two hundred years, disputes over congressional requests for Executive Branch information have followed a common trajectory. Ordinarily, the Executive Branch provides information responsive to legitimate legislative inquiries while withholding material that implicates important Executive Branch prerogatives. Both sides seek to balance Congress's legitimate investigative concerns against the important confidentiality concerns of the Executive. The strength and nature of Congress's desire for information and the Executive's desire for confidentiality shift over the course of the negotiations, for a host of reasons. The resulting "accommodation process" between the two co-equal Branches is political, and often disorderly and contentious, and the ultimate resolution often reflects a variety of considerations and compromises on both sides. But it is precisely the inherently political nature of the process of confrontation and resolution that makes it ill-suited for judicial review.

Operation Fast and Furious was a failed DOJ investigation involving tracked guns that were permitted to travel from Arizona to Mexico in an attempt to stop weapons trafficking by high-level arms dealers. In June the DOJ announced that it will not prosecute Holder after the Oversight Committee voted to hold him in contempt of Congress [JURIST reports] for failing to comply fully with the committee's subpoenas. Upon being held in contempt Holder responded [press release], "Today's vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided—and politically motivated—investigation during an election year," and stated he would continue to focus on the government's job of protecting the American people. Obama ultimately asserted executive privilege on the subpoenaed documents, effectively rendering the contempt charge moot. The DOJ submitted a joint staff report [text, PDF] to the committee in July 2011, discussing the effects of the admittedly failed operation in Mexico. The committee began investigating the operation [press release] through the DOJ's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives [official website] in April of that year.

To avoid the prospect of an Ex Post Facto Clause violation, we interpret the Military Commissions Act of 2006 so that it does not authorize retroactive prosecution for conduct committed before enactment of that Act unless the conduct was already prohibited under existing US law as a war crime triable by military commission. In this case, therefore, Hamdan's conviction stands or falls on whether his conduct was prohibited by the pre-existing statute 10 USC § 821, at the time he committed the conduct...Material support for terrorism was not a war crime under the law of war referenced in 10 USC § 821 at the time of Hamdan's conduct.

In June the DC Circuit ordered [JURIST report] attorneys in the case of the former Guantanamo Bay [JURIST backgrounder] detainee to supply briefs explaining whether the issue has become moot because Hamdan already completed his sentence and is no longer living in the US. In a post-argument brief, lawyers for Hamdan argued that his conviction will continue to have adverse affects on his life, including his permanent ban on travel to the US and potential future political conflict with US army, which continues to occupy his home country of Yemen. Following the Authorization for Use of Military Force [text] (AUMF) against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, Hamdan was captured in Afghanistan while driving in a vehicle that contained two anti-aircraft missiles. He was then transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where the US Military detained him and, at a military tribunal, charged him as an unlawful enemy combatant who had committed war crimes. Hamdan challenged his conviction, prompting a decision from the US Supreme Court [official website], which held [opinion; JURIST report] that his trial violated US and international law. Congress subsequently passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and Hamdan was convicted [JURIST report] yet again. Hamdan's conviction was affirmed [JURIST report] by a US Court of Military Commission Review [official website], prompting an appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and ultimately resulting in Tuesday's decision.

Transnational organized crime has been a problem affecting countries around the world. In July, when announcing its $870 billion estimate, the UNODC launched its global awareness-raising campaign [campaign website] with the purpose of informing the public about the economic costs and human impact associated with the threat transnational organized criminal networks were creating. In February UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] called [JURIST report] for an increase in efforts to address transnational organized crime, drug trafficking and piracy in West Africa. In June 2010 the UNODC released a report revealing the globalization of organized crime [JURIST report] and its threat to international security. Afghanistan and Colombia were found to be the major suppliers of the majority of the world's illegal drugs, but the profits were primarily found where the drugs were sold. During the same month, the US State Department (DOS) [official website] stated [JURIST report] that US complies with international regulations but still faces serious problem with human trafficking.

The proposed legislation follows the trend mostly in Western nations that have imposed strict controls on tobacco sales, advertisements and bans on public smoking. Earlier this month the High Court of Australia [official website] published its reasons for dismissing a lawsuit [JURIST reports] brought by several large tobacco companies challenging new labeling requirements [TPP Act] that require cigarette packages to display graphic images warning of the dangers of smoking and ban brand logos. Similar issues have arisen in the US. In August the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that tobacco companies do not need to print graphic warnings of the danger of smoking, but in March the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] ruled that graphic cigarette label warnings are constitutional [JURIST report]. The court decided unanimously that the portions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act [HR 1256 text], signed [JURIST report] by President Barack Obama in 2009 and designed to limit the tobacco industry's ability to advertise to children, are a valid restriction on commercial free speech.

As the trial for the accused 9/11 planners begins, many other Guantanamo detainees await decisions about their fate. At the end of September Canadian citizen Omar Khadr [JURIST news archive] was transferred to Canada [JURIST report] from Guantanamo Bay to serve out the rest of his prison sentence under the authority of the Correctional Service of Canada. Around the same time, the ACLU announced that on the basis of a Freedom of Information Act request it filed, the government released the names of 55 detainees who were approved for release [JURIST report] from Guantanamo Bay in 2010 but have yet to be released. Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif [NYT profile] died at a hospital [JURIST report] on the US Navy base in September after guards found him unconscious in his cell. According to Forum contributor David Frakt [JURIST op-ed], the story of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif "exemplifies how many of the detainees are also victims, not of terrorism, but of the war on terror."

In August 2011 Hadzic entered a not guilty plea [JURIST report] at the ICTY. Hadzic had refused to enter a plea [JURIST report] the previous month when he was extradited to The Hague [JURIST report]. Hadzic was the last fugitive of the original 161 sought by the ICTY to be arrested [JURIST report]. The ICTY's work in prosecuting suspected war criminals for acts committed during the Balkan War was part of the impetus for the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] and other conflict and region specific criminal tribunals. The ICTY was the first war crimes court created by the UN [ICTY backgrounder] and the first international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. It was created by the UN Security Council [official website] pursuant to Chapter VII of the UN Charter [text].

Yulia Tymoshenkop has already been convicted and sentenced [JURIST report] to seven years in prison under charges of abuse of power and corruption. Her current trial is on charges of tax evasion, and she is awaiting trial on a charge of murder [JURIST reports]. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held a hearing [JURIST report] in August on Tymoshenko's appeal to the abuse of power conviction. Tymoshenko alleges that all charges against her are politically motivated. Many in the West have agreed with her and support her efforts to overturn her conviction. JURIST guest columnist Myroslaw Smorodsky [official profile] of the Board of Governors of the Ukrainian American Bar Association [official website] called her conviction [JURIST comment] a "very tragic step backwards and a serious setback in the democratic evolution of the Ukrainian nation."

When at the polls, potential Arizona voters are already required to produce photo ID [JURIST report], but when registering to vote, Proposition 200 would require them to prove their citizenship. However, because registering to vote is a federal process, the state forms cannot contradict the federal forms. If one registered at a state office, one would have to provide an Arizona driver's license, a US passport, a birth certificate or naturalization documents. However, if one registered by mail or online using the federal form, they could escape this requirement—the federal form relies on an "honor system" where one checks a box saying they are a citizen. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc struck down the citizenship requirement [JURIST report] in April. This followed a three-judge panel panel [JURIST report] ruling in October that reached the same conclusion. Among the members of the three-judge panel was retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Arizona appealed [JURIST report] the ruling to the Supreme Court in June.