Activists say Afghanistan considering war crimes court in response to allegations News
Activists say Afghanistan considering war crimes court in response to allegations

[JURIST] The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission [official website] said Monday that the government of Afghanistan is considering creating a war crimes court to deal with allegations of human rights abuses dating back to the Soviet invasion in the 1970s. Earlier this month Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] issued a report [text] calling for investigation of several high-level government officials [JURIST report], accusing them of having committed abuses during Afghanistan's civil war in the early 1990s. Afghan President Hamid Karzai [Wikipedia profile] had no immediate comment, but a AIHRC commissioner said he expected a decision "in the coming weeks". AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UK parliament rejected J.S. Mill's proposal to give women the vote

On May 20, 1867, the British Parliament rejected by 196-73 an amendment to the 1867 Reform Act presented by John Stuart Mill that would have permitted women to vote. Review Mill's 1869 work The Subjection of Women.

Supreme Court applies Free Exercise Clause to state governments

On May 20, 1940, the United States Supreme Court held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment applied to state governments in Cantwell v. Connecticut under the incorporation doctrine, which applied the protections of the Bill of Rights to state governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Learn more about the Incorporation Doctrine from the Cornell Law Schools' Legal Information Institute.