Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty Thursday to drug trafficking in Khimki Russia amid accusations that she was wrongfully detained in the country. According to Russian state news agency TASS, Griner admitted her guilt but stated there was no intent to smuggle the drugs into the country. Griner is accused of [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and FairSquare Wednesday released a report detailing Egypt’s use of travel bans and asset freezes to persecute prominent activists. HRW says that these activists include “rights lawyers, journalists, feminists, and researchers.” Since November 2015 HRW has documented “scores” of travel bans that President Abdelfattah al-Sisi’s government systematically imposed to prevent its [...]
The Law Commission of England and Wales Thursday released new recommendations for reforming the criminal code surrounding the taking and sharing of non-consensual sexual images. In England and Wales only “upskirting” and voyeurism are criminalized, but other offenses such as “deepfakes” (putting someone’s face on an existing pornographic video), “downblousing,” and “nudifiying” images (adding someone [...]
The Global Accountability Network (GAN) released a white paper Wednesday carving out a detailed path to prosecute Russia, and even its standing leader Vladimir Putin, for the international crime of aggression. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) defines the crime of aggression in the following terms: The planning, preparation, initiation or [...]
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Thursday ruled that Greece’s “pushback” operation that led to the sinking of a migrant boat, killing eleven (including children and infants), violated articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In Safi and others v. Greece, the court held that the behavior of Greek security [...]
The European Parliament Wednesday voted to advance legislation which would include certain gas and nuclear energy-related activities in the European Union (EU) list of environmentally sustainable activities. This inclusion, subject to strict conditions, aims to enable EU members’ transition to climate neutrality by 2050. In 2020 the EU passed the Taxonomy Regulation, setting out a [...]
The United Kingdom Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that diplomats who force staff to work in conditions of modern slavery cannot invoke diplomatic immunity to fend off compensatory claims. The suit was brought by Josephine Wong, a Philippines national, against Saudi diplomat Khalid Basfar for forcing her to work for him and his family in abusive [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Tuesday reversed a preliminary injunction against a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo prioritizing the deportation of dangerous immigrants. In September 2021 the DHS issued a memo outlining immigration enforcement policies and priorities. The memo prioritized the deportation of noncitizens deemed to be threats to national [...]
A New York judge Tuesday held real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield in contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena to produce documents in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil investigation into Donald Trump and the Trump Organization’s financial dealings. James subpoenaed Cushman & Wakefield to produce documents related to real [...]
US Senate Intelligence Committee members Tuesday called for the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate social media platform TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance for invading the privacy of its users. The members accuse the companies of repeatedly allowing company engineers and executives located in China access to private US users’ data, despite [...]
