Amsterdam District Court has upheld a prior restitution committee decision that a painting by artist Wassily Kandinsky belongs to the Stedelijk Museum, not to the original Jewish owner’s heirs. The painting, titled “Painting With Houses,” was sold in 1940 to the Amsterdam city council months after the Nazis invaded the city. The Lewenstein family sued [...]

Queensland Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman has announced that the introduction of voluntary assisted dying legislation will be delayed until May 2021, promising that the delay will not have a detrimental impact on the state. The delay follows the Queensland Government’s recommitment to introducing assisted dying laws when Anastasia Palaszczuk’s Labour Government was re-elected in October this [...]

The Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg region on Saturday ordered automaker Tesla to cease clearing trees on some parts of the site around the company’s first electric car factory in Europe. While construction on the site has begun, the factory could still be prevented from opening. Currently, Tesla awaits the complete approval of two permits, [...]

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Friday that it has jurisdiction to intervene in a historic boundary dispute between Venezuela and Guyana. Venezuela refused to participate in the hearing but submitted 200 pages of evidence in its defense. In the 1890s, when Guyana was still a British colony, the UK and Venezuela both claimed certain [...]

In a majority decision, the Constitutional Court of Romania has struck down a legislative amendment that effectively banned the subject of gender studies in university education as unconstitutional. Article 7(1)(e) of the impugned amendment was introduced earlier this year to amend Article 7 of the National Education Law No. 1/2011. The amendment prohibited any discussion in [...]

Spain’s Supreme Court Friday ordered lower courts to investigate deaths caused by COVID-19 in the country’s nursing homes. The Court additionally ordered probes into possible misuse of government funding to purchase flawed or fraudulent medical equipment. The instructions follow a previous ruling that complaints filed by unions, professional organizations, relatives of COVID-19 victims, and a [...]

Advocate General Gerard Hogan of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concluded in an opinion delivered Thursday that Malta’s judicial appointment process does not contravene EU law. The preliminary ruling was part of ongoing proceedings before the Maltese courts, brought by pro-democracy and human rights group Repubblika. The group alleged that Malta’s current judicial appointment [...]

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on Thai authorities Friday to amend a Thai criminal code provision that punishes insulting the country’s monarchy. The OHCHR statement came in response to the arrest of as many as 35 protesters, including a 16-year-old student, in recent weeks. Under section 112 [...]

More than thirty US states initiated an antitrust lawsuit against Google on Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit alleges that Google has abused its position as a “Silicon Valley titan” by manipulating its search results to dominate its smaller rivals. The issue arose in October when the US [...]

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India decided Friday to proceed with criminal contempt of court cases against Kunal Kamra, a stand-up comedian, and Rachita Taneja, a cartoonist, for their tweets criticizing the court. Kamra had posted a series of tweets criticizing the Supreme Court for its order granting bail to Arnab Goswami, an Indian news [...]