The US Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules (ACAR) on Thursday voted to remove a proposed membership-disclosure requirement from the rules governing amicus briefs in federal appellate courts. The now scrapped changes would have required amicus filers to name any donor who contributed more than $100 toward a brief if that person had been a member [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and 10 human rights organizations, on Thursday, urged the government of the Republic of Maldives to withdraw its plans to end its death penalty moratorium and introduce capital punishment for drug-related crimes. HRW warned that the Maldives’s recent proposal would violate its obligations under international law, including the International Covenant on [...]

Amnesty International and Human Rights First published their first joint letter to Irish officials on Thursday, urging an end to the US administration’s use of Shannon Airport for unlawful Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removals. The two human rights organizations expressed concern over ICE’s use of Shannon Airport at least five times, involving the removal [...]

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) released on Thursday a new Artificial Intelligence-assisted platform, HungerMap Live, designed to monitor global famine crises and provide an advanced warning system to help prevent and combat hunger. HungerMap Live is regarded as the first evidence-based warning system that alerts the world about emerging hunger conditions in advance, providing [...]

Israel’s new death penalty law is one of the most discriminatory pieces of execution legislation that the world has witnessed since Hitler’s Third Reich. This incontrovertible truth is yet another reason why the Israeli Knesset’s recent passage of its heinous “Death Penalty for Terrorists” law on March 30 has effectively defiled this year’s observance of [...]

On Tuesday, Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, spoke at the fifth session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, where he described reparations as “key to dismantling systemic racism.” Türk called for member states to adopt and enforce anti-racism laws, policies and practices; include young people of African descent [...]

A group of UN independent experts on Wednesday denounced the assassination of human rights advocate Zweli “Khabazela” Mkhize, and urged South Africa to hold perpetrators accountable. The experts, referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, stated: We urge South Africa to ensure a prompt, effective, impartial and thorough investigation into the [...]

UN experts on Thursday insisted on accountability for trafficking allegations contained in the Epstein files, warning that disclosures emerging from the documents indicate that the systemic trafficking continues. UN experts Siobhán Mullally, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, as well as Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstić, Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Haina Lu and [...]

Amnesty International applauded on Wednesday the Italian government’s suspension its decades-long defense agreement with Israel, due to growing opposition to the Israeli military operations in the Middle East. Italy’s decision marks a departure from the right-wing government’s traditional supportive relationship with Israel. Opposition parties and Italian civil society voices had pushed for the action, as [...]