Nuclear talks continued Sunday in Lausanne, Switzerland, two days before a self-imposed deadline for a preliminary deal set by the six world powers involved in the negotiations with Iran. US Secretary of State John Kerry and French and German foreign ministers have cancelled travel plans to leave Lausanne, opting instead to remain in Switzerland and [...]
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Thursday released its 2014 Annual Humanitarian Overview , noting that Palestinian civilians continue to face daily threats to their physical safety and liberty, with 2014 holding the highest civilian death toll in the conflict since the annexation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. The report [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Saturday expressed concern over civilian casualties resulting from Saudi Arabia-led airstrikes in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. The airstrikes that occurred on March 26th killed between eleven and 34 civilians, including at least two women and two children. HRW reported an inability to determine whether the attacks complied with the laws of [...]
Nigeria held its presidential and gubernatorial elections Saturday in spite of violent attacks against voters by Boko Haram . The elections, originally scheduled for February 14, were postponed as Nigeria attempted to eradicate Boko Haram after reports that the group had acquired military-grade weaponry, including armored personnel carriers. A series of military victories against Boko [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist John B. Quigley, of The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, discusses the possible implications of prosecuting ISIL under international law… The Human Rights Council of the UN addressed the question of rights violations by ISIL in Iraq in Resolution S/22-1 of September 1, 2014, titled “The human rights situation in [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that the federal government does not have to relinquish its gun-registry database to Quebec. The Court’s 5-4 decision affirmed Parliament’s constitutional right over criminal law. Although three Quebec judges dissented, the majority ruled that the principle of cooperative federalism—collaborative national, state and local government interactions to solve common [...]
A former El Salvadoran Defense Minister accused of human rights abuses during the country’s 1980s civil war is in US immigration custody to await deportation, immigration officials said Friday. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova was arrested in Florida where he has been living since 1989. Earlier this month, the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld Vides’ deportation [...]
The February decision from the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters declaring the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas a terrorist organization was annulled on Friday. The initial decision was based on lawsuits alleging that Hamas is responsible for multiple attacks against Egyptian security forces, which have resulted in casualties and deaths. According to reports from Arab news [...]
The UN refugee agency released a report on Thursday that identified a significant increase in asylum applications to industrialized countries as a result of the displacement effectuated primarily by the wars in Syria and Iraq. In the report, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres drew parallels between the current demand for asylum and [...]
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday adopted four new resolutions, one of which creates a special rapporteur on the right to privacy in the digital age. Decided without a vote, the council reaffirmed the standing right to be free from unlawful or arbitrary interferences to privacy, and set to appoint a special rapporteur [...]
