The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday issued a decision requiring sentencing judges to consider the history of oppression that Aboriginal offenders may have experienced when determining appropriate sentences. The court determined that sentencing judges should take into account certain negative factors affecting Aboriginal defendants: When sentencing an Aboriginal offender, courts must take judicial notice [...]
Over the past couple weeks, several people have asked why JURIST needs to raise funds. You can read all the details on these pages, but the most direct answer is that it all comes back to budget cuts. Due to general economic circumstances completely outside of our control, we are anticipating a significant reduction in [...]
US Attorney General Eric Holder signed new guidelines on Thursday for the use of information not related to terrorism activities by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) . The NCTC is permitted to gather data on American citizens to search for “terrorism information” which it can keep permanently. One of the significant provisions of the new [...]
US Army Sgt. Robert Bales was charged with 17 counts of murder Friday for the alleged shooting of Afghan civilians, including women and children, in a Kandahar village almost two weeks ago. He will also be charged with six counts of attempted murder and six counts of aggravated assault. Bales allegedly went on a shooting [...]
The US District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an order to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday requiring the agency to initiate withdrawal proceedings that could lead to the removal of broad spectrum antibiotics from agricultural livestock feed. In 1977 the FDA released a notice that it would hold [...]
Thirty-five Nigerian villages brought a suit against Shell Friday in a London court alleging Shell’s slow response in cleaning up two oil spills in a neighboring river ruined their livelihoods. The lawsuit claims Shell is responsible for unspecified damages suffered by the villages which rely on the river for drinking water and farming. The lawsuit [...]
JURIST Columnist Lisa Pruitt, writing the second installment of the column authored by the faculty of the University of California, Davis School of Law, says that the recent UN conference on status of women failed to adequately address the realities of enforcing laws that affect women in rural areas…
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern Friday over the harassment of Sri Lankan rights activists following the adoption of a UN resolution regarding the investigation of war crimes committed during the country’s recent conflict with its separatist Tamil Tiger rebels. The UN Human Rights Council adopted the resolution on Thursday urging [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas on Thursday rejected the motion for new trial filed by Allen Stanford . Judge David Hittner did not provide any reason for his ruling. The order came just one day after Stanford’s lawyers argued that their client was deprived of his Sixth [...]
The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday appealed two decisions by the Dane County Circuit Court blocking Wisconsin’s new voter identification law . The DOJ filed on behalf of the defendants in NAACP v. Walker and League of Women Voters v. Walker . Judge Richard Neiss refused to lift the injunction on Tuesday after [...]
