The author, Zakra Noor, is a lawyer and recent graduate of Bahria University, located in Islamabad, Pakistan. Globally, thousands and millions of people flee their homes due to persecution, conflict, national disputes, political instability and other threats, seeking refuge in other countries. Understanding how different countries protect the rights of these refugees is essential in [...]
The streets of Bangladesh have seen their share of bloodshed over the past week as more than 100 protesters were killed during mass student demonstrations against a quota system that reserved 30 percent of government positions for Bangladesh Liberation War veterans and their descendants. Although the quota system was largely scaled back by the country’s [...]
Chiquita’s money helped buy weapons and ammunition used to kill innocent victims. —US Government sentencing memo, 2008 In 2007, Chiquita — one of the world’s largest banana producers — admitted that for years it had been knowingly paying a Colombian terrorist organization to protect its operations in the country. The consequence was predictably violent, allegedly [...]
The 2024 US presidential election will be historic on several fronts. It will be the first rematch between presidential candidates since Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower faced down Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1956. At 81 and 77 respectively, incumbent candidate Joe Biden and his adversary Donald Trump are the oldest major party frontrunners in the history [...]
The US Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday in Snyder v. United States, a case involving illegal gratuities paid to a local government official. The issue is whether the federal government can use 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B)—known as federal funds bribery—to prosecute those who give and take illegal gratuities or whether the statute only [...]
The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 stands as a cornerstone treaty in the realm of international law, delineating the structure for diplomatic interactions between sovereign states. This pivotal agreement secures the rights and protections of diplomatic missions, granting diplomats the freedom to execute their duties without hindrance or intimidation from the host nation. [...]
Uganda’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday upheld most provisions of controversial legislation that imposes a sentence of death by hanging against individuals convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.” In upholding the Anti-Homosexuality Act, the court maintained that though the country’s penal code is “undoubtedly … considered to be a relic from the country’s colonial past,” the bill’s overwhelming [...]
This week in Scotland, a hate crime law that ranks among the world’s strictest entered into force. The Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2021 (Hate Crime Act) aims to modernize and consolidate protections while broadening the scope of recognized hate crimes to encompass a wider range of individuals and circumstances. In other words, the [...]
A report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council this week shines a distressing light on the catastrophic human toll and the systematic destruction in Gaza following military operations by Israel. In the report, entitled Anatomy of a Genocide, Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, detailed the toll of the staggering loss of life, [...]
The US prides itself on being a nation built on freedom, justice, and individual rights. And yet the evolution of its system of mass incarceration — a system that cannot be defined without reference to shocking racial disparities — seems to directly contradict these founding principles. The US prison population dwarfs those of nearly every other [...]
