Mohammed v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Queen's Bench, November 19, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on Guantanamo detainees.

The Supreme Court of Israel banned privately-run prisons on Thursday, ruling 8-1 that they violate prisoners' fundamental rights and introduce an element of profit into the prison system. The decision followed a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Academic College of Law's Human Rights Department against Israel's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Public Security, the [...]

A judge for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday ordered the director of the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AO) to provide health benefits to the same-sex spouse of a federal employee. Karen Golinski, the federal court employee who sued for the benefits, was married in California during the [...]

Godfrey, et al. v. Spano, et al., New York Court of Appeals, November 20, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on same-sex marriage.

The US Senate on Thursday voted 59-39 to confirm Judge David Hamilton to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit , overcoming Republican opposition to secure President Barack Obama's first and longest-delayed judicial nominee. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said a Republican filibuster delayed the vote for five-and-a-half months, since it [...]

The Somali Transitional Federal Government on Friday announced its intention to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) , which, if successful, would make the US the only UN member state not to have done so. The UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) welcomed the announcement that Somalia's ministers had agreed in [...]

John Esposito : "Despite our increasingly globalized world and the need to strengthen religious pluralism as well as to transform an outmoded notion of tolerance based simply on co-existence to one based on mutual understanding and respect and the equal rights of all citizens, many countries continue to fail the religious freedom litmus test. Religious [...]

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday affirmed a lower court's denial of a conservative advocacy group's motion to intervene in a challenge to Proposition 8 , California's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage . The appeals court held that the district court did not abuse abuse its [...]

The Argentine Senate on Thursday voted 57-1 to approve a law that authorizes the government to obtain DNA samples from individuals suspected to have been born to forced disappearance victims of the 1976-1983 "Dirty War" . The law will amend Article 218 of the Criminal Penal Code to allow minimal biological samples to be taken [...]

The New York Court of Appeals on Thursday dismissed a challenge to two policies that provide benefits to same-sex couples married outside of the state. The first policy was a 2006 decision by the Westchester County executive to extend benefits to same-sex spouses of county employees. The second policy was a 2006 decision by the [...]