The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled Friday that Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto must be present for most of his trial at The Hague, unanimously reversing the Trial Chamber’s decision to grant a conditional excusal from continuous physical presence. While the Trial Chamber enjoys discretion under Article 63(1) of the Rome [...]
UN Special Rapporteur Sheila Keetharuth appealed to the international community on Thursday to keep the Eritrean human rights situation in focus and to increase efforts to aid refugees. Approximately 300,000 Eritrean refugees fled the country in 2012 alone, and the UN Refugee Agency estimates that between two and three thousand people attempt to escape every [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Ahmed Shaheed on Wednesday condemned the Iranian government for the high number of executions this year and restrictions on freedom of speech. Despite having been refused entry into Iran since his appointment as special rapporteur in 2011, Shaheed’s report [...]
UN human rights expert Doudou Diene on Thursday stressed the importance of remembering the victims of the violent post-election crisis that gripped the West African nation of the Ivory Coast two years ago. The five-month long post-election crisis, which resulted in at least 3,000 civilian deaths, erupted when former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step [...]
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the state’s driving while intoxicated (DWI) implied consent law, ruling it is constitutional under the Fourth Amendment . The law makes it a crime for impaired drivers to refuse to take a breath, blood or urine test. The case, State v. Brooks, arose out of three separate driving [...]
The government of Chad should release prisoners without charges or charge them with a recognizable criminal offense, Amnesty International (AI) said in a report released Thursday. The government is allegedly using charges such as “inciting racial hatred,” “defamation” and “endangering national security” to justify the arrests of journalists, human rights defenders, trade-unionists and students. Chad [...]
The Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled in an unreleased decision on Wednesday that a constitutional amendment and pursuant statute expanding the military justice system is unconstitutional. Magistrate Jorge Ivan Palacio announced that the decision was based on “procedural defects” within the law. The measure would have placed violations of international human rights law involving the [...]
UN Special Raporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) Chaloka Beyani urged the government of Serbia and authorities in Kosovo on Tuesday to cooperate and discharge their primary responsibility for applying lasting solutions for IDPs in Serbia and Kosovo. “The time is now conducive to implement durable solutions, after 15 years of [...]
A jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday found Bank of America (BOA) liable for fraudulently making bad loans and for removing quality checks for those loans. Also implicated in the verdict are Countrywide (a subdivision of Bank of America) and senior executive Rebecca Mairone. The verdict [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday upheld the conviction of ex-Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa. Ghailani had appealed his conviction on the premise that his constitutional rights to a speedy trial had been violated by his lengthy detainment and interrogation [...]
