Pakistan´s rule of law is stymied by long traditions of lawlessness and dictatorship, says the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute in a new report. The report, published Thursday, stems from observations and more than 100 interviews conducted with all Pakistani individuals who have some stake in the court system there, from judges to defendants, over the course of two weeks in March and April. Though the report praises Pakistani lawyers for their part in restoring Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to his post, it raises many concerns about the lack of judicial oversight for judges, protection of them and their families, and the Islamisation of Pakistani law, particularly by location. The report further elucidates thirty-five recommendations for implementation, saying:
Iran´s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got most of his cabinet ministers, including the first woman, approved by parliament on Thursday, bolstering him while he deals with an international dispute over Tehran´s nuclear program.
Two bloggers from Azerbaijan are facing up to five years in jail after posting a video of a donkey giving a news conference on YouTube.
A senior lawyer at Microsoft is calling for the creation of a global patent system to make it easier and faster for corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights around the world.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus [official website, in Czech] on Wednesday called an emergency meeting [press release, in Czech] of political officials to discuss potential changes to the country´s constitution, one day after the Constitutional Court [official website, in Czech] delayed elections [press release, in Czech] planned for October 9 and 10 to consider a suit by a lawmaker. The court delayed the election after independent lawmaker Milos Melcak filed a complaint [text, PDF, in Czech] alleging that the scheduled elections violated his rights by not allowing him to serve his full parliamentary term. Klaus said [press release, in Czech] he was "seriously concerned" by the court´s decision, calling it "highly political." At Wednesday´s meeting, politicians agreed to establish a working group to prepare amendments to the constitution that would make it easier to dissolve parliament and call new elections.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) [official website] announced [press release] Tuesday that a group of 91 countries have reached an agreement on the final text of the first ever treaty [text, PDF] to combat illegal fishing. The Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing aims to prevent illegally caught fish from entering international markets. Under the terms of the treaty, foreign vessels will need special docking permission, countries will conduct regular inspections, and information sharing networks must be created. FAO Assistant-Director General for Fisheries and Aquaculture Ichiro Nomura said:
Lawyers for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Monday filed a motion to dismiss [text, PDF] a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] brought by a former State Department [official website] official seeking diplomatic immunity against Italian charges of helping to unlawfully kidnap a suspected terrorist. Sabrina De Sousa is one of 26 Americans and seven Italians on trial in Italy [JURIST news archive] for the 2003 abduction of Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. De Sousa is on trial in absentia and filed suit [NYT report] in May asking the government to invoke diplomatic immunity on her behalf, as it has neither invoked nor waived diplomatic immunity for those on trial. The government moved to dismiss her case [AP report] Monday, arguing that the courts lack the power to intervene in a matter of foreign policy that should be left to the executive branch:
Divorcing couples encouraged to search for the most favourable court Divorcing couples search for the best court Divorcing couples can receive vastly different outcomes depending upon which part of the country their case is heard
General Motors Co GM.UL said on Wednesday its China vehicles sales in August jumped 112.7 percent from a year earlier, paving the way for a more than 40 percent rise in sales for the full year.
Toyota Motor Corp, the world´s largest carmaker, will ask Japan´s new government to extend the deadline for subsidies on purchases of new environmentally friendly cars by two years from the original schedule of March 2010, a Toyota executive said on Wednesday.
Five states have asked U.S. Senate leaders to let them impose stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions than what would be permitted under the climate legislation working its way though Congress, saying both levels of regulation are necessary to fight global warming.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a federal court´s order that the state reduce its prison population by 40,000 inmates, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
The arrest last month of four Shanghai-based Rio Tinto executives has raised fears of a crackdown by Beijing on foreign companies that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
A 2006 federal law that prohibits gambling over the Internet was upheld by a U.S. appeals court after a challenge from a New Jersey-based nonprofit corporation that promotes electronic betting.
Freedom Communications Inc., the owner of more than 30 daily newspapers including the Orange County Register in California, sought bankruptcy protection after print advertising revenue declined.
A German court has ruled that Google must change terms of service that could be interpreted to compromise a user´s rights, a decision the consumer advocacy group that brought the suit welcomed Monday as a victory for online transparency.
Privacy advocates released a series of guidelines Tuesday for legislators considering regulations on behavioral advertising, calling for greater transparency and giving Web surfers more control over how the data is used.
Several US tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard [corporate websites], filed a federal lawsuit [complaint, PDF] Monday challenging a new tobacco regulation law on First Amendment grounds. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky [official website], challenges portions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act [text, PDF], which contains several provisions that the tobacco companies allege restrict or ban truthful speech in violation of the First Amendment. The complaint alleges among other things that the act:
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) plans to expand its Civil Rights Division and more actively enforce anti-discrimination laws, Attorney General Eric Holder [official profile] told the New York Times [media website] in an interview published Monday.
Cross-border traffic between North and South Korea returned to normal Tuesday, ending eight months of restrictions imposed by the North, South Korea´s Yonhap news agency reported.
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