Purdue Pharma filed a bankruptcy plan on Monday to restructure the company into a new entity with revenue directed toward combating the opioid crisis. The plan also requires the company’s family owners to pay an additional $4.275 billion to resolve thousands of civil claims. Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin, filed for bankruptcy protection in September [...]

France’s National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, adopted an amendment to the constitution on Tuesday concerning environmental and biodiversity preservation. The amendment will be inserted into Article 1 of the France Constitution. Article 1 says: France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the [...]

The lower house of the French Parliament on Monday voted unanimously to make the minimum threshold age of sexual consent 15 years. Under current law, consent may be obtained from a sexual partner regardless of age, including children. Also under current law, prosecutors must prove “that a minor was forced, threatened or tricked into having [...]

The Philippines Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition questioning the legal validity of President Rodrigo Duterte’s unilateral withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2019, claiming that the issue had become “moot and academic.” The Philippines officially withdrew from the ICC on March 17, 2019, a year after Duterte had publicly announced the [...]

JURIST EXCLUSIVE – Uncertainty reigned in Myanmar late Wednesday as the ruling military junta announced it was cutting off public wifi access after stopping mobile data services Monday in a bid to stop videos and photos showing brutal police actions against civilian pro-democracy protesters from flooding the internet. It is still unclear whether the announced [...]

Belgian authorities arrested a Kosovo war crimes suspect on Tuesday. Pjetёr Shala was wanted “pursuant to an arrest warrant and confirmed indictment related to war crimes” according to a pre-trial judge of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC). He is being held in Belgium until he can be moved to the KSC detention facilities in The [...]

The government of Sudan formally requested assistance Monday from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, current African Union chairman, the US and the EU in settling a dispute over a dam on the Nile River. Egypt has expressed support for the proposal. The dam in question, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), is currently under [...]

The Colorado State Supreme Court on Monday ruled that having computers speed-read bills on the legislative floor is unconstitutional. The Colorado constitution provides that all bills that come before the legislature shall be read aloud on two different days in each house, unless all the members present consent to waive the reading. The controversy at [...]

Portugal’s Constitutional Court ruled Monday that legislation that would permit physician assisted death is unconstitutional. The bill limited physician-assisted dying to terminally ill patients in severe pain, who are judged to be mentally healthy enough to understand what they were asking. In addition to legalizing physician-assisted dying, the bill removed criminal penalties physicians would have [...]

The Sapporo District Court found Wednesday that the government’s failure to recognize same-sex marriage is unconstitutional because it violates the right to equality. As a member of the Group of Seven, an intergovernmental organization including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, Japan was the only country that did not recognize same-sex marriage. [...]