The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request  on Monday seeking information related to comments made by US National Security Advisor John Bolton on the US policy towards the International Criminal Court (ICC) . The FOIA request specifically asks for communications from January 20, 2017 to the present, which [...]

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations announced on Monday that it has filed  a suit in the European Court of Human Rights  against Hungary over “Stop Soros laws.” The laws enacted in Hungary include “a 25 percent tax on funding for any activities and organizations that promote or positively portray migration” and making it illegal for [...]

The EU on Monday referred  Poland to the Court of Justice of the EU due to a new law that would force 27 Supreme Court judges to retire. Poland’s new law lowers the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65, which would require that 27 out of 72 sitting Supreme Court judges [...]

The Italian cabinet on Monday unanimously approved  a decree  that will make deporting migrants easier. The new bill would make it easier for migrants who have been found guilty of serious crimes to be deported. Previously, this could only be done after a long appeals process. The bill suggests six criteria for determining whether an [...]

The Scottish Court of Session , Scotland’s Supreme Court for civil matters, said Friday that a question of Britain’s ability to revoke the Brexit plan upon its inability to agree posed by anti-Brexit advocates is one for the EU. Article 50 of the Treaty on EU provides the protocol for how a member state may [...]

Amnesty International UK blamed  the Venezuelan government under President Nicolás Maduro  for the “worst human rights crisis in its history” in a report  published on Thursday. The study highlights human rights abuses  that Amnesty condemns as showing a disregard for human life. Among the most poignant statistics are that 22 percent of homicides committed in 2016 [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Minnesota  ruled Friday that a provision in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that bans discrimination in health care based on sex includes transgender and gender non-conforming people. Plaintiffs Brittany Tovar and Reid Olsen brought suit against health care providers Essentia Health and Innovis Health over “health care [...]

California Governor Jerry Brown  signed Assembly Bill 1884  on Thursday banning full service restaurants from automatically providing customers with plastic single-use straws for beverages. The bill allows restaurants to provide customers with plastic straws only on request by the customer. After notice of violation upon a third violation of the statute, restaurants are fined $25 [...]

The Eastern High Court of appeals in Denmark on Friday upheld a decision that a Rwandan native and Danish national since 2014 can be extradited to face trial for crimes against humanity. Wenceslas Twagirayezu is suspected of committing crimes against humanity in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Twagirayezu was arrested in May 2017 . In a [...]

Governor Ralph Torres of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands on Friday signed HB 20-178  to legalize marijuana. In particular, the bill allows a person who is 21 or older to “possess and transport up to one ounce of marijuana, 16 ounces of marijuana products in solid form, 72 ounces of cannabis in liquid [...]