The head of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) Martin Kobler on Sunday commended the sentencing of a former militia commander accused of war crimes. General Jerome Kakwaku was sentenced by a military court to 10 years in prison for his leadership of the Forces armees du peuple [...]
Mumia Abu-Jamal and supporters filed a lawsuit Monday challenging a recently passed Pennsylvania law that they claim stifles free speech. The law, an amendment to the Crime Victims Act titled “Revictimization relief,” states that victims of personal injury crimes can bring civil actions against offenders to get either “injunctive or appropriate relief” for any conduct [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday called for the trial of 26 former state security agents of Chad dictator Hissene Habre to be carried out in a “fair and transparent manner.” The defendants are accused of murder, torture, kidnapping, arbitrary detention, and assault and battery during Habre’s rule. The trial is set to commence in [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Arizona on Friday struck down an Arizona law that made smuggling immigrants a state crime because it conflicts with federal laws governing immigration. The law was passed in 2005 and designed to prosecute those trafficking people into the country. It was by modified Arizona’s [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on Friday that Alaska’s lawsuit challenging the Roadless Rule can be heard because it falls within the statute of limitations. This decision overturns the ruling by the US District Court of the District of Columbia that dismissed Alaska’s suit against the US Forest [...]
Around 2 million people in Spain’s Catalonia region voted in a mock independence poll for Catalonia’s independence from Spain. Results released on Monday showed that 1.6 million voters favored breaking away from Spain to create their own nation. However, with 5.4 million people eligible to vote, less than half were represented at the polls. Originally [...]
The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the federal government challenging recently enacted “gainful employment” regulations that would penalize schools for not preparing students for their chosen career paths. The regulations require that career training programs provide evidence that their graduates are making enough money to pay back [...]
Over one million Catalans on Sunday participated in a non-binding vote on whether Catalonia should secede from Spain. The wealthy region’s government decided to move ahead with the vote despite the Spanish Constitutional Court suspending the vote on Tuesday to hear arguments claiming that the vote is unconstitutional. The decision was based on Article 161.2 [...]
The United Nations (UN) on Saturday reported that special rapporteurs Christof Heyns and Juan Mendez were blocked from completing a torture and killing investigation in Gambia. The investigation was lead by the two UN experts to assess the practice of the right to life laws of Gambia and to identify examples of cruel and unusual [...]
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) on Saturday agreed to organize an intelligence network with participating nations in an effort to combat corruption within the region. APEC acknowledged the necessity of a network between countries because current government corruption “impedes economic sustainability and development, threatens social security and fairness, undermines the rule of law, and erodes [...]
