The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Thursday upheld an injunction against President Donald Trump’s travel ban that targets six Muslim-majority countries. The ban, announced in March , was the second version of a travel prohibition preventing people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the US for 90 [...]
Iraq’s Interior Ministry has launched an investigation into human rights violations carried out against civilians by special forces while fighting the Islamic State (IS) in Mosul. The allegations were initially reported by Ali Arkady, an Iraqi photographer with Der Spiegel Magazine who accompanied the Interior Ministry’s special forces team, the Emergency Response Division (ERD), a [...]
Vermont Governor Phil Scott vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have made Vermont the ninth state to legalize recreational marijuana and the first to do so via a legislative body . Scott sent the bill back to lawmakers with suggestions for more aggressive penalties for using marijuana while driving or in the presence of [...]
Three UN experts on cultural rights, extreme poverty and adequate housing urged the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to stop the demolition of a 400-year-old neighborhood in Awamia on Wednesday. According to Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain the historic quarter of Awamia, al-Masora, has a significant cultural history. The walled city holds mosques, [...]
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law on the island of Mindanao on Tuesday when heavily armed militants linked to the Islamic State took over large parts of Marawi City, a provincial capital in the predominantly Roman Catholic country. Violence erupted after the government attempted to capture Isnilon Hapilon, the leader of the Muate, a [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Jay Austin of the Environmental Law Institute discusses President Trump’s recent executive order concerning offshore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf … Even before this week’s dramatic events, the topic of “presidential power” had already been trending. There’s now an entire law school course devoted to the Trump Administration’s first 100 days; [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District Court of California agreed Tuesday to reconsider his ruling blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order that cuts funding from so-called “sanctuary cities.” In his opinion, San Fransisco-based Judge William Orrick stated, “Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened [...]
The Texas Senate revived a full “bathroom bill” early Wednesday morning. In 1AM vote , the Senate voted 21-10 to attach restroom regulations to an otherwise unrelated proposal concerning county governments. The piggy-backing rules will require transgender Texans to use public restrooms that correspond to the sex identified on their birth certificates. The original bill [...]
Taiwan’s constitutional court, the Judicial Yuan , declared on Wednesday that same-sex marriages will be legally recognized. The court has given two years for the legislature to make amendments allowing same-sex marriage, and a draft of the bill is currently being considered. Under the new legislation, same-sex couples will have the same rights as opposite-sex [...]
The Nevada Senate voted 11-10 on Tuesday to approve a bill that would allow terminally ill patients the option to end their life. The bill would allow, but does not require, doctors to prescribe pharmaceuticals intended to end the patient’s life. In order to be found competent, two doctors must diagnose the patient with a [...]
