The Supreme Court of India Friday dismissed an appeal filed by Zakia Jafri alleging a “larger conspiracy” by then-Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi and 62 other senior state officials in connection with state riots in 2002. Jafri is the widow of Ehsan Jafri, a Congress party MP who was killed in the riots. The [...]

The Supreme Court of Texas Friday ruled to uphold a state ban that “prohibits the processing and manufacturing of smokable hemp products.” Four hemp companies argued that this state ban was unconstitutional, based on article 1, section 19 of the Texas Constitution, which states that “o citizen of this State shall be deprived of life, [...]

US President Joe Biden Saturday signed into law S.2938, a gun bill intended to limit who can purchase firearms and make mental health investments throughout the US. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed the House Friday after receiving Senate approval Thursday. The bill was introduced by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) last October. The bill amends [...]

Abortion policy is now in the hands of the states following the US Supreme Court’s Friday decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. President Joe Biden has directed the Department of Health and Human Services to take steps to make sure abortion and contraception [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Friday ruled that a copper mining project did not violate local Apache American Indians’ First Amendment religious rights. A 2014 Congress act requires the US secretary of agriculture to give mining company Rio Tinto land called Oak Flat, which is to Apache American Indians a sacred site. In [...]

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Friday stated that he had sought authorization from the ICC to resume investigating the Philippine government’s “war on drugs” as quickly as possible. In September last year, the ICC authorized the prosecutor’s office to investigate the Philippines’ alleged crimes against humanity committed between November 2011 and March 2019. The [...]

The US Supreme Court Thursday held that prisoners on death row may challenge their state’s method of execution under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In Nance v. Ward, the court addressed the issue of whether a death row inmate could bring a case challenging the method of execution they will face. Petitioner Michael Nance received a death [...]

Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Thursday called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to put increased pressure on the Myanmar junta, following his eight-day visit to Malaysia. In February last year, a military coup took place in Myanmar, in which the junta deposed the civilian government and arrested [...]

The German Bundestag Friday abolished paragraph 219a of the Strafgesetzbuch, the German Penal Code, as part of the new government’s campaign to fully decriminalize abortion. Paragraph 219a law read: Anyone who publicly, in a meeting or by disseminating content… for their pecuniary benefit or in a grossly offensive manner own or third-party services to carry [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Friday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that there is no constitutional right to abortion, overturning the landmark decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The decision comes in a case involving a Mississippi law banning all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi’s Gestational Age [...]