Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday rendered a judgment against Jelena Rasic, sentencing her to 12 months imprisonment on contempt charges. The judgment came following the acceptance of a plea agreement last week. Rasic was the former case manager for Bosnian war criminal Milan Lukic . [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled Monday that Texas can begin enforcing a state law that requires women to have a sonogram before undergoing an abortion . In his ruling, Judge Sam Sparks noted that he was ordering the enforcement of the law following a ruling by [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Proposition 8 , California’s ban on same-sex marriage , is unconstitutional. The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that the voter-approved constitutional amendment violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. According to the court: Although the [...]
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday elected its new president and vice president , who will each serve a term of three years. Judge Peter Tomka of Slovakia will serve as president. Tomka, who has been vice president of the ICJ since 2009, has also worked for the Slovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs [...]
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed resigned on Tuesday after weeks of protests over the detainment of senior criminal court Judge Abdulla Mohamed, who was arrested last month for corruption . Nasheed, the country’s first democratically-elected president, stepped down , saying in a public address: “I believe if I continue as the President of the Maldives, the [...]
The UN released its annual report Monday on trends in female genital mutilation (FGM) , revealing that approximately 2,000 African communities have renounced the practice since last year . The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) compiled the report to fulfill a joint-mission to accelerate the voluntary abandonment of practicing FGM [...]
The Court of Appeals in Milan on Monday announced that they will overturn a lower court’s verdict on Tunisian former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohamed Riadh Ben Nasri . Nasri was convicted of terrorism association two years ago, after he was transferred from Guantanamo Bay to stand trial in Italy. He was sentenced to six years [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Robert Borrelle, Syracuse University College of Law Class of 2013, works in the Disability Rights Clinic at Syracuse University. He argues that the current medical model of disability used in the US legal system should be rejected in order to further societal and legal recognition of Disability culture… Litigation has played a [...]
US President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Monday imposing strict sanctions on Iran as part of an effort to enforce a bill he signed into law in December 2011. The bill, National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA) , allows for sanctions such as those ordered by Obama to be imposed on Iran. [...]
Muslim cleric Abu Qatada was granted bail Monday by a Special Immigration Appeals Commission in the UK. He made his application for bail after winning an appeal in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to avoid deportation to his native Jordan. A court in Jordan previously found him guilty in absentia of two bomb [...]
