A judge for the US District Court for the District of Utah on Friday denied an appeal by 74-year-old death row inmate Ron Lafferty to place a hold on his federal case to challenge his execution by firing squad. Lafferty is one of the longest-serving prisoners on death row in Utah and is scheduled to [...]

The President of Palestine, HE Mahmoud Abbas, and other Palestinian foreign officials met with the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday, where the Palestinian officials presented documents that purportedly contain evidence of war crimes by Israel. The ICC prosecutor’s office, led by Fatou Bensouda, opened an preliminary investigation into the matter [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday expressed concern over the “organized attack” on opposition politicians in Cambodia. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani highlighted that 11 political activists are serving between seven- and 20-year jail sentences for leading political “insurrections” in Cambodia, and another member [...]

Rwanda’s lower house of Parliament on Thursday voted to extend the term of President Paul Kagame beyond 2017, a move opposed by the UN and other aid providers. Already in his second term, Kagame may soon be provided an exception to the nation’s constitutional rule limiting presidents to two seven-year terms. Although he has not [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Daniel J. Wright of the Law Offices of Daniel Wright discusses how post-conviction procedure rules hinder the ability to seek truth in faulty sentences… Those accused of a serious crime are entitled by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution to representation by an attorney. This right extends in most states [...]

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague ruled Thursday that it has jurisdiction to hear a dispute between the Philippines and China over parts of the South China Sea. At issue are a number of islands and shoals in the South China Sea, which the Philippines says China has annexed illegally under the [...]

The US Department of Defense (DOD) on Friday announced that the last remaining British inmate, Shaker Aamer, has been released and returned to the UK after extensive review by the Guantanamo Review Task Force. Though he is a citizen of the UK through marriage, Aamer identifies himself as a Saudi national. In 2001, Aamer was [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday denied a motion by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to halt the bulk collection of phone records by the National Security Agency (NSA) . The appeals court ruled in May that the USA PATRIOT Act did not authorize the NSA to collect millions [...]

The European Parliament voted 342-274 on Thursday to approve a resolution encouraging its member countries not to extradite Edward Snowden to the US. In an affirmative act passed by a vote of 285-281, Parliament also called upon its member states to drop all criminal charges against Snowden and offer him protection as an “international human [...]

The US government’s case against five Guantanamo Bay detainees will continue to move forward after a US military judge on Thursday determined that one of the defendants may not fire his defense lawyer . US military judge James Pohl ruled that Walid Bin Atash did not show good cause to fire his lawyer. Judge Pohl [...]