The Italian Court of Cassation , the country's highest appeals court, ruled Tuesday that couples seeking to adopt children of a certain ethnicity or race "are not suitable for international adoption." The judgment was prompted by the case of a Sicilian couple who declared that they only wanted to adopt a Caucasian child of European [...]
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Wednesday condemned Israel's weekend raid on aid ships bound for the blockaded Gaza strip and initiated an independent investigation into possible violations of international law. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 32 to 3 with 9 abstentions and authorizes the president of the council to appoint [...]
The governments of Finland, Belgium, and Denmark agreed Tuesday to detain those convicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) . ICC President Judge Sang-Hyun Song described the agreement as "an important element in the overall credibility of the judicial process at the ICC." The agreement was signed at the Review Conference of the Rome Statute [...]
US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen Rapp expressed concern Tuesday over the potential adoption of a state aggression law by the International Criminal Court (ICC) , claiming that it could undermine the integrity of the ICC. The statement came during a speech at the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute . Addressing the [...]
Members of the Quebec National Assembly on Wednesday introduced Bill 103 aimed at tightening the province's language laws. The bill seeks to limit the number of students attending English language schools by increasing fines on schools established to circumvent the principle instruction in French required by Section 72 of the Charter of the French Language [...]
Spain's conservative Popular Party (PP) on Tuesday asked the country's high court to declare the recently approved changes to Spain's abortion laws unconstitutional. Under the new law, abortions performed in the first 14 weeks of gestation are declared a right , and abortions are allowed until 22 weeks if the mother's life is in danger. [...]
The city of Tucson, Arizona has joined a lawsuit against the the state's new immigration law , a court filing revealed Tuesday. Tucson was originally named as a defendant along with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) in the federal lawsuit filed in April by Tucson police officer Martin Escobar. However, the city responded by filing [...]
Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart announced Tuesday that an investigation has been launched into inadvertent data collection by Google while photographing streetscapes on unsecured wireless networks for its Street View maps. The investigation will determine whether Google has violated Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) , which applies to private organizations that [...]
Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday condemned the recent execution of 18 people in Libya . The executed were charged with pre-meditated murder and several were foreign nationals from Chad, Egypt, and Nigeria. AI reiterated their opposition to the death penalty under all circumstances as a form of cruel punishment and inhumane treatment. They also expressed [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday called on the Obama administration to stop shielding Bush administration officials from civil suit and criminal prosecution in relation to the treatment of detainees in US custody. The organization warned that to do otherwise would only further impunity and cause "irreparable damage to the rule of law," [...]
