Lawyers for Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday asked that the International Criminal Court (ICC) drop the case against the leader for crimes against humanity and acquit him, arguing that the prosecution does not have adequate evidence to prove its case. Kenyatta’s appearance at the status conference hearing made him the first sitting president to [...]
The Supreme Court of Chile on Tuesday halted the development of a gold and copper mine until proper consultation can be conducted with indigenous and local communities. The mine, owned by Canadian gold producer Goldcorp , is expected to be worth approximately USD $4 billion. However, the Diaguita community in northern Chile filed a request [...]
The social media company Twitter filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against both the FBI (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking more information about government surveillance. Twitter is seeking to publish what they call a “transparency report” in order to inform their users about US government surveillance programs. Twitter provided both the DOJ and [...]
Liberia’s Justice Minister Christiana Tah on Monday resigned from her position, claiming the country’s president had blocked an investigation. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf accepted the resignation after meeting with Tah at the Foreign Ministry office. Tah stepped down claiming that Sirleaf intentionally blocked an investigation into fraud allegations against Liberia’s National Security Administration. Tah [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday struck down same-sex marriage bans in Nevada and Idaho . The court found that the bans violate same-sex couples’ due process and equal protection rights. The three-judge panel rejected arguments that same-sex marriages are harmful to children of same-sex couples who may be stigmatized. [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Tuesday. In Holt v. Hobbs the court is considering whether an Arkansas prison policy that prohibits Muslim prisoners from growing a half-inch beard violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) . Current prison policy only allows facial hair in the form of [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Jason Birriel, St. John’s University School of Law, Class of 2015, is the author of the third article in a twelve-part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development. Birriel discusses the issues with mandatory judiciary retirement provisions and possible alternatives…In the summer of 2008, the Chief [...]
Judges for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday retired to consider their verdicts in the trial of Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic . Prosecutors delivered their closing arguments last month. Karadzic is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war committed during the 1995 [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled Monday that a tactic employed by police to control protesters in Ferguson, Missouri is unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction to stop the practice. Police were forcing peaceful protesters to keep moving, a crowd-control tactic that also kept protesters from standing [...]
The Criminal Chambers of the Spanish National Court decided unanimously Monday that Spain has jurisdiction to investigate the November 16, 1989, massacre of the Jesuits at the Central American University and their two employees as a crime against humanity after a reversal of legislation that had prevented Spanish jurisdiction over international crimes. Earlier this year [...]
