Documents declassified on Tuesday reveal that, between 2006 and 2009, the National Security Agency (NSA) violated court rules with most of its queries of a phone database. These documents were declassified as a result of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) . The Foreign [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Drew F. Cohen, a clerk for the Constitutional Court of South Africa, discusses the consequences of the Southern African Development Community endorsing Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe’s re-election…
Venezuela’s government officially withdrew from an international human rights court on Tuesday, fulfilling a plan by former president Hugo Chavez . Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro tweeted that the country would withdraw from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) because the IACHR had allegedly become an instrument to “persecute progressive governments.” Venezuela’s exit from the [...]
A member of Quebec’s separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) is proposing a bill that would ban government workers from wearing religious clothing on their heads, including turbans, hijabs and kippas. Bernard Drainville , the minister who proposed the bill, which is known as the values charter, said that the bill’s purpose is to ensure that the [...]
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly filed an answer on Tuesday admitting that the New York Police Department (NYPD) spied in mosques and on a Muslim preacher but requesting that the court dismiss the complaint. The lawsuit was filed in June by plaintiffs represented by the New York Civil Liberties [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Google of violating a federal wiretap law while collecting data for its Street View program. The case arose after Google acknowledged that its Street View vehicles had been collecting and storing data over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples James Anaya on Tuesday called on state, federal and tribal authorities in the US to ensure the well being and human rights of “Veronica,” the child in the Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl case that reached the US Supreme Court . Anaya urged that “he [...]
The Syrian government is likely responsible for the August 21 chemical weapon attacks, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Tuesday. HRW stated that the attack probably involved the use of sarin nerve gas, echoing a UN report of the suspected use of sarin in Syria dating back to June. HRW also stated that it was probably [...]
Kenya Deputy President William Ruto on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) . Ruto is on trial for three counts of crimes against humanity for allegedly fomenting violence following the 2007 elections that led to the deaths of at least 1,100 people and displacement of [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Richer, University of Chicago Law School Class of 2015, analyzes the repercussions stemming from the recent New Mexico Supreme Court ruling that prohibits people from discriminating against LGBT individuals as clients, even if it contradicts their religious beliefs…
