Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro is expected to appear in a Manhattan federal courtroom on Monday to face US charges of leading a 25-year conspiracy to traffic cocaine into the United States in partnership with designated terrorist organizations. An indictment filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York charges Maduro and [...]

The state of judicial independence in Romania has come into the spotlight following one of the biggest corruption scandals in the country’s history and two weeks of mass protests in Bucharest calling for judicial reform, with tens of thousands taking to the streets. Why are Romanians taking to the streets? The demonstrations were sparked by [...]

In Ghana’s ongoing battle against corruption, few institutions have attracted as much attention—and controversy—as the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP). The Office of the Special Prosecutor was established in 2017 under the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959). There are also subsidiary legislations governing the OSP such as the Office of [...]

The US Supreme Court will hear Hamm v. Smith on Wednesday, December 10, a death penalty case testing how courts should treat multiple IQ scores when deciding whether a death-row prisoner is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution under the Eighth Amendment. Joseph Clifton Smith was sentenced to death in Alabama for a 1997 [...]

Violence against children and other persons in Nigeria has become one of the most pressing human rights concerns in West Africa. From the attacks by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the North-East to clashes in the Middle Belt involving armed gangs, the toll on lives, livelihoods, and religious freedom [...]

This week, President Donald Trump pardoned a man federal prosecutors described as the architect of a “narco-state” who moved 400 tons of cocaine to United States shores. In September, the US military began killing people on Caribbean vessels based on unproven suspicions they were doing the same thing on a far smaller scale. The strikes [...]

Editor’s Note: This explainer is published ahead of the November 12, 2025 Supreme Court hearing on the constitutionality of Ghana’s deportation agreement with the United States. In mid-2025, Ghana entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Repatriation and Temporary Hosting of West African Nationals with the US, to accept deportees and host certain West [...]

The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday, November 5, in a pair of cases challenging President Donald Trump’s authority to impose broad tariffs on nearly all imported goods. The consolidated cases, Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., ask whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) allows [...]

US President Donald Trump recently claimed he has “unquestioned power” under the Insurrection Act to deploy National Guard troops to San Francisco. The Insurrection Act grants the President authority to deploy military forces domestically to suppress insurrection or rebellion. Dating to 1807, it represents a narrow exception to the Posse Comitatus Act‘s general prohibition against [...]

Ghana’s bodies of water are being poisoned by mercury and cyanide. Babies are being born with severe health conditions. And now a chorus of voices is demanding the president invoke emergency powers to stop it. The culprit is galamsey—a local term for illegal small-scale mining that has transformed fertile farmland and pristine rivers across Ghana [...]