UN officials urged the international community to strengthen collaborative efforts to combat human trafficking on Tuesday at a special General Assembly meeting. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that there are at least 2.4 million victims of human trafficking at any given moment. They also believe that the profits from the human [...]
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rejected the final appeal by Mumia Abu-Jamal , a former member of the Black Panthers who was convicted of killing a police officer in Philadelphia in 1981. The ruling affirmed an order from the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas which denied Abu-Jamal’s claim that certain pieces of forensic evidence were [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Josh Douglas of the University of Kentucky College of Law says that state constitutions are becoming an important source of voting rights in challenges to recent laws requiring specific forms of voter identification…
The Office of Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said Tuesday that the ICC lacks jurisdiction to investigate allegations of crimes committed in Palestine during the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict . After considering arguments from both sides as to whether the Office of the Prosecutor could proceed with the investigations, the Office determined that Palestine [...]
The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh (ICTB) on Tuesday granted prosecutors’ warrant petition for the arrest of a former leader of the Islamist group Jamaat e Islami (JI) for crimes committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War . Prosecutors have accused 64-year-old Abul Kalam Azad, also known as “Bachchu Razakar,” of murder, rape, destruction of [...]
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday expressed concern over political and security instability in Mali, and how ongoing fighting between government forces and Tuareg rebels will affect Malians forced to flee their homes in search of safety. UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming told reporters the the north of the country is becoming “more [...]
A group of same-sex couples filed a lawsuit on Monday challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on the grounds that the law discriminates against same-sex couples in which one of the partners is a foreign national. In the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New [...]
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday filed charges in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) alleging that the bank was involved in an illegal futures trading scheme known as “wash trading” from 2007-2010. Under the alleged scheme, RBC and its [...]
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Monday upheld a 1996 amendment to the California Constitution which bars preferential treatment for “any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” Though [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Ansgar Ohly of the University of Bayreuth says that two recent decisions by the European Court of Human Rights offer clarity on the boundaries of the right to privacy and the freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights…
