Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday ruled on two measures to set the stage for impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff . The first ruling requires the re-formation of a congressional committee set up to guide Rousseff’s impeachment through Congress. The committee, set up in a secret lower-house ballot last week, was stacked with proponents of [...]
Citizens of the Central African Republic (CAR) voted this week on a constitutional referendum intended to bring stability to the nation. According to partial results released Thursday, amendments to the constitution to create a senate, allow for freedom of religion and disincentivize political disruptiveness passed with ease, with around 90 percent of votes in favor. [...]
The UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution on Thursday to dispatch experts to investigate human rights violations in Burundi, condemning violence in the country, use of excessive force by officials, and restrictions on freedoms. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said the UN must take immediate action to prevent a [...]
Colombia’s Supreme Court exonerated a retired army colonel on Wednesday who had been found guilty of the forced disappearances of two people he escorted away from the 1985 Palace of Justice Siege, ordering the colonel’s immediate release . Luis Alfonso Plazas Vega was detained after a prosecutor re-opened investigations into disappearances related to the siege [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Duke M. Truong of the Valparaiso University School of Law, Class of 2017, discusses the issues the US is facing in accepting Syrian refugees in fear of terrorist attack… Eighty-one percent of Americans see a major terrorist attack as likely following the Paris massacres on November 13, 2015. Overcome with fear, Americans [...]
The National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria approved amendments to the Constitution on Wednesday to reform the judicial system. At a third reading of the proposed amendments, 189 legislators voted in favour, 39 MPs voted against and one abstained. The constitutional amendments will split the Supreme Judicial Council into two colleges of judges and [...]
The European Commission on Tuesday reached an agreement on data protection regulations concerning how digital information is to be collected and managed across the EU. The EU Data Protection Reform was initiated in 2012 and was approved following final negotiations by both the European Parliament and the Council. The reform was in response to calls [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Bonnie Docherty of Human Rights Watch discusses the need to strengthen existing international law on incendiary weapons … Incendiary weapons inflict almost unrivaled cruelty on their victims. Photos taken after an incendiary weapon attack on a Syrian school show the charred bodies of children, who must have experienced unimaginable agony. The weapons [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Alyssa Lebron of St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2016 is the seventh author in a twelve-part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development. Lebron discusses the long-term effects of concussions and the need for federal regulation in contact sports… On February 17, 2011, [...]
The Japanese Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a law requiring married couples to have the same surname is constitutional. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of women who claimed the law amounted to gender discrimination because it caused undue emotional stress and sometimes even depression when they were forced to pick a surname when it [...]
