France’s Constitutional Council on Friday approved a same-sex marriage bill . The legislation was approved by parliament last month, but former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement party filed a legal challenge. The court rejected the challenge but did clarify that the right of same-sex couples to adopt does not establish a “right [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday urged Syrian opposition leaders and neutral international experts to safeguard evidence of torture and arbitrary detention uncovered in government intelligence facilities in Raqqa, the first city to fall to rebel forces. HRW visited the area in April and discovered detention cells, interrogation rooms and torture devices consistent with descriptions [...]
The Chad public prosecutor’s office announced on Wednesday that it has arrested Mahamat Djibrine, a former political police chief suspected of torture and hundreds of politically motivated killings in the 1980s. Djibrine was in charge of the Directorate of Documentation and Service (DDS) political police under then-president Hissene Habre , and was arrested after DDS [...]
Bolivian lawmakers on Tuesday passed a bill allowing incumbent President Evo Morales to seek a third term in the nation’s 2014 elections. Bolivia’s lower house approved the bill 84 to 33 despite the single re-election provision in the Bolivian Constitution after the measure was approved in the Senate. The constitution was amended in 2009 after [...]
Hungarian laws introduced by the ruling Fidesz party in 2010 are undermining human rights, according to a report published Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . According to HRW, the new constitution and laws are negatively affecting human rights and the rule of law. The 29-page report states that many of the major changes “weaken [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas on Wednesday rejected Arkansas’ attempt to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the state’s law banning abortions 12 weeks into a pregnancy. US District Judge Susan Webber Wright denied the motion to dismiss, ruling that the lawsuit made a strong enough case to warrant [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Tuesday denied an appeal by a German family seeking asylum in the US in order to homeschool their children for religious reasons. The Romeike family alleged that Germany’s ban against homeschooling caused them a well-founded fear of persecution based on their membership in a “particular [...]
JURIST Associate Editor Fangxing Li, University of Pittsburgh School of Law Class of 2014, explores the upcoming US Supreme Court decision on affirmative action policies in institutions of higher education and argues that these policies harm rather than help diversity in schools that employ those policies…
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday denied a motion to certify a putative class action against Google’s YouTube involving copyright owners from around the world. Named plaintiffs included the English Premier League, the French Tennis Federation, the National Music Publishers’ Association and several other music [...]
A group of UN experts on Wednesday encouraged Guatemalan authorities to continue to seek the establishment of internal and transitional “truth and justice” in the wake of the trial of Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt . Last Friday, a Guatemalan court sentenced Rios Montt to 80 years in prison for his role in presiding [...]
