Search Results for: executive detention

The UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi raised the issue last month of Hong Kong’s new Article 23 national security proposals, which have been a subject of considerable controversy and debate in recent years. The Article 23 law in Hong Kong’s Basic Law stipulates that the [...]

An investigation published by Reuters on Friday revealed that a secretive committee of high-ranking officials in Ethiopia has been committing human rights violations in order to eliminate the Oromo Liberation Army- Oromo Liberation Front (OLF-OLA) insurgency group. Reuters interviewed over 30 sources, revealing the committee’s existence for the first time on record. The committee, called [...]

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional bloc in West Africa, announced on Saturday its decision to immediately lift sanctions imposed on Niger. This move aims to prevent the withdrawal of the junta-led nation from the bloc, considering the significant economic, financial and institutional implications for the country and the region. The [...]

Amnesty International (AI) issued a statement Monday urging Ethiopian authorities to stop using the country’s state of emergency as a way to “silence peaceful dissent” by arbitrarily detaining politicians and journalists critical of the government. The state of emergency, originally imposed for six months in August 2023 under Article 93 of the Ethiopian Constitution, granted [...]

Last week, a US appeals court panel stood as guardians of America’s founding ideals against a would-be despot. Donald Trump told the court that he is immune to prosecution over the January 6 Capitol attack because at the time he was president, and thus anything he may have said or done in connection with the [...]

The year 2024 is an important one for Sri Lanka. It is a presidential election year, and a resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council to gather evidence of international crimes for use in future prosecutions is due for renewal. After the public ousters of the former-elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2023, Ranil Wickremesinghe [...]

A Moscow court ruled on Friday to extend the sentence of imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by two months. Gershkovich, a US citizen, has been detained in Moscow since March 29, 2023 on espionage charges. This is the fourth extension of his sentence. He will now spend more than a year behind bars [...]

Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement asserting Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense on Wednesday as tensions with the Biden administration over security along the US southern border escalated. The statement specifically references Article I, § 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution, which Abbott interpreted as granting Texas the authority to act autonomously against [...]

The current conflict engulfing Israel and Palestine raises significant issues of international law and policy. This is part one in an anticipated two-part series that will discuss some of the relevant legal questions before the International Criminal Court (ICC; Part I) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ; Part II).  With both courts located in [...]

Iran executed Tuesday Mohammad Ghobadlou, a protester with a long-term psychosocial disability, for the alleged murder of a police officer during the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests. The Iranian judiciary’s news agency Mizan reported the execution. The Criminal Court of Tehran Province executed Ghobadlou after the Supreme Court of Iran confirmed Ghobadlou’s death sentence. Ghobadlou was [...]