The United Nations Office of the Higher Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported their concerns on Friday over the outcome of both the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases. The UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsak, said “I am concerned by the grand juries’ decisions and the apparent conflicting evidence that exists relating [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Peter J. Hammer, of Wayne State University Law School, discusses the socioeconomic disparities that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals experience in Michigan … In an increasing number of domains, from worker rights, to marriage inequality, to state-imposed “Emergency Managers,” almost exclusively in majority-minority cities, Michigan is becoming known as the “Mississippi [...]
The High Court of Justice of England and Wales has declared that the government’s ban on sending books to prisoners in England is unlawful. Current rules prevent prisoners from receiving parcels unless there are exceptional circumstances such as a medical condition. Justice Collins called the ban “unnecessary and irrational” and highlighted the importance of books [...]
Former head of China’s domestic security apparatus Zhou Yongkang has been arrested and expelled from the ruling Communist Party after being accused of accepting bribes, exploiting his power to enrich family members and leaking state secrets. Zhou, once a potent rival for President Xi Jinping , is the highest ranking leader to ever face criminal [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Jeffrey D. Jackson, of the Washburn University School of Law, discusses the complexities of applying state and federal court orders to state marriage laws … On October 6, 2014, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari on all seven cases challenging state bans on same-sex marriage, which effectively allowed the decisions in the [...]
Government officials for the Obama administration , on Friday, announced the coming of new rules intended to decrease racial profiling. These rules, to be released by the Justice Department as an expansion of anti-profiling laws passed in 2003 , are expected to impact federal law enforcement agencies by banning racial profiling for national security cases. [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Philip Leach, of Middlesex University and the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), discusses how the Irish government has urged the European Court of Human Rights to reopen the 1978 case Ireland v. UK … The Irish government announced this week that it is applying to the European Court of Human Rights [...]
Police in Bosnia and Serbia, as part of a joint investigation and operation, arrested 15 individuals Friday accused of perpetrating the massacre of 19 unarmed men during the height of the Balkan conflict. The men are accused of orchestrating the 1993 Strpci massacre where Bosnian Serb militiamen removed 18 Bosnian Muslims and one Croat from [...]
US Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that a civil rights investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) into the Cleveland Division of Police discovered “a pattern or practice of unreasonable and unnecessary use of force.” The investigation, which began in March 2013, was sparked by a rash of high-profile use of force incidents and [...]
International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda dropped the charges of murder, rape, persecution, deportation and other inhumane acts against Kenyan President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta on Friday. This action comes after an ICC trial chamber order on Wednesday that required the prosecutor to either withdraw the charges or show sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. [...]
