UN: violations against children in conflict 'alarmingly high'
Grave violations against children in conflict remain alarmingly high, with the COVID-19 pandemic increasing their vulnerability, according to a UN report released Monday. The annual Children and Armed Conflict report covers the period from January to December 2020. It claims that grave violations against children are at nearly 26,500 due to increased vulnerability to abduction, [...]
US President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that his administration is withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan beginning May 1. “We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We’ll do it—we’ll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely. And we will do it in full coordination with our allies and partners, who now have more forces in [...]
Explainer: What is temporary protective status (TPS) and why does it matter?
As the US Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments next week in Sanchez v. Mayorkas, an immigration case involving the impact of temporary protected status (TPS) with respect to lawful-permanent residency, JURIST’s latest explainer takes a deep dive into TPS and its implications under the new presidential administration. What is TPS and how does a [...]
Kenya court suspends government's move to close refugee camps
Kenya’s high court issued a 30-day stay order Thursday suspending a move by the government to close the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps housing hundreds of thousands of refugees from war-torn neighboring countries such as Somalia. The case arose after Kenya’s Interior Minster Fred Matiang’i announced the government’s desire to close the Dadaab and Kakuma camps. Matiang’i’s [...]
The government of Kenya revealed Sunday that it had pulled out of the maritime border case with Somalia just a few hours before the scheduled virtual hearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands. In a letter to the ICJ, Kenya’s Attorney General argued that the COVID-19 pandemic struck right after [...]
The US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment Wednsesday charging Cholo Abdi Abdullah, a Kenyan member of the al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group al Shabaab, with six counts of terrorism-related crimes for allegedly plotting an attack similar to those carried out by al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001. Al Shabaab, a wing of al Qaeda in East Africa, joined [...]
The Teitiota family from a little-known Pacific island didn’t intend to become a catalyst for expanding the concept of asylum—but they became one anyway. In 2015, New Zealand denied the family’s asylum claim and deported them, despite the parents’ plea that their three children’s health and well-being were at risk amid crop failure, withering coconut [...]
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on developed and developing economies alike. While the major international focus has shifted towards restoring normalcy, a blind eye has been turned to the growing instability in the global political sphere. Whether they be the recent tensions in the Nagorno-Karabakh Region or the fierce simmering between Iran and [...]
Somalian Pirates and the Law of the Sea: International Law in Crisis
“Somalia is a land that has descended so deeply into misery that “failed state” is too generous a description for the country.” –TIME Magazine In August 2020, three Iranian hostages who had been held for five years were freed by Somalian pirates, as contradictory news emerged that another ship had been intercepted after a three-year [...]
US Ninth Circuit rules mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was unlawful
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that the US government’s mass surveillance program exposed by Edward Snowden seven years ago was unlawful. The ruling was handed down as part of the court’s decision in a case involving four members of the Somali diaspora who were convicted for sending or conspiring to [...]
