The Secretaries of State from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina filed a motion on Monday urging the US Supreme Court to block the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s recent order striking down the Congressional Redistricting Act of 2011 as violating the state constitution. The motion seeks the ability to submit an amicus brief on [...]
France’s highest administrative court on Monday reversed the ban on breeding killer whales and dolphins in captivity. The Council of State’s decision to annul the ministerial decree comes less than a year after it was signed. They cited irregularities in the consultation process as their reason for revoking the order. The ban was the previous [...]
Twenty-five children and young citizens of Colombia between the ages of seven and 26 on Monday filed the first ever climate change litigation in Latin America. The plaintiffs, represented by Dejusticia, come from 17 regions classified by The Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology, and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) as high-risk areas affected by climate change. These areas [...]
The UK Court of Appeal on Tuesday invalidated mass surveillance as part of legislation that was passed in 2016. The legislation, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA), was passed initially as an emergency provision in 2014. After the legislation expired, it was expanded by the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) , commonly referred to [...]
Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Monday announced his Cabinet’s approval to hold a referendum on abortion in late May or early June stating the exact date will become clear after a debate and vote in the Dáil and Seanad of the Oireachtas . Expressing his confidence in meeting the timeline, Varadkar stated that Health Minister [...]
Federal Judge David Ezra of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas on Monday temporarily blocked a Texas law requiring health facilitates and abortion clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains. A stay on this law had been extended by the court in January 2017 until January 29, 2018. The original complaint, [...]
The US Senate voted 51-46 on Monday, stopping the advancement of a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The House approved the bill in October in a 237-189 vote. The bill , entitled the Pain Capable Unborn Child Act, was sponsored by South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham . The legislation would make [...]
Human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng was reportedly charged Saturday with “inciting subversion of state officials” after writing a letter calling for reform to China’s constitution. Yu was arrested outside his home in Beijing nearly two weeks ago for “disrupting a public service,” just hours after he wrote an open letter urging for democratic changes, including [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied review of a Board of Immigrant Appeals (BIA) case on Monday, reasoning that alien minors do not have a constitutional right to court-appointed counsel. The court ruled that neither the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment, nor the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) impose [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Sudanese government on Monday to immediately release peaceful protesters from detention or grant them full due process. The demonstrators were arrested while protesting Sudan’s 2018 budget, which triples the US dollar exchange rate of Sudan’s currency and increases prices. Authorities beat protesters, used tear gas, and arbitrarily detained hundreds [...]
