A California ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage is set to appear on the November ballot, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said Monday. If approved by voters, the California Marriage Protection Act would amend the state constitution to read, "nly marriage between a man and a woman is [...]

A Chinese official has dismissed a new US report on the state of Chinese human rights, calling it incorrect and groundless . Findings in the US Department of State's 2008 Advancing Freedom and Democracy Reports , released late last month, accuse the Chinese government of denying its citizens basic human rights and also describe the [...]

The judges of the Constitutional Court of South Africa have filed a complaint with the country's judicial disciplinary body, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) , alleging that the top judge in the Cape High Court unconstitutionally attempting to influence Constitutional Court judges in a pending corruption case against African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma [...]

Richlin Security Service v. Chertoff, US Supreme Court, June 2, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

United States v. Cuellar, US Supreme Court, June 2, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Myrna Perez : "In what is arguably the most important voting rights case this year, a three-judge federal court in Washington, D.C. upheld a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that prevents states and local governments from enacting discriminatory voting practices. The provision at issue is Section 5, which applies to states and localities [...]

A proposed anti-terror bill that would allow British law enforcement authorities to detain terror suspects without charge for up to 42 days should not be passed as it could set a bad precedent for other countries, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights said during a BBC Radio 4 interview Monday. Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg [...]

A federal judge in the US District Court for the Central District of California Monday sentenced leading class-action securities lawyer Melvyn Weiss to 30 months in prison and ordered him to pay over $10 million in fines and forfeitures. The former Milberg Weiss partner pleaded guilty in April to one count of racketeering conspiracy related [...]

Bonnie Docherty : "The pound of a gavel Friday ushered in a new era of international humanitarian law (IHL) and marked the beginning of the end for a weapon that has caused tens of thousands of civilian casualties over the past 40 years. Without a single objection, 111 states attending a negotiating conference in Dublin [...]

The UN's new Universal Periodic Review has made great strides in protecting human rights but still has far to go, departing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said in her last address to the UN Human Rights Council Monday. Despite gains in safeguarding rights, Arbour noted that discrimination against women and ethnic, religious [...]