A Netherlands appeals court on Tuesday overturned a landmark 2021 ruling requiring Shell to cut its carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030 . This was a setback for the environmental advocacy group Milieudefensie, which sought legal avenues to enforce corporate climate action. In the original 2021 decision, the District Court of The Hague found [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged Ethiopian authorities to implement crucial recommendations to enhance press freedom and ensure journalists’ safety on Monday. In the report, the CPJ concludes five years of research and details significant challenges faced by media professionals in Ethiopia, including arbitrary arrests, physical attacks, and restrictive legal measures. It details instances [...]

Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) faces a series of complaints filed across nine European countries on Monday, accusing the company of illegal use of private data in violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). NGO None of Your Business (Noyb)  lodged complaints in France, Belgium, Austria, Spain, and the Netherlands, among other countries, raising concerns over X’s data [...]

Thailand’s Constitutional Court ordered the progressive Move Forward Party’s (MFP) dissolution on Wednesday based on the party’s proposal to amend the country’s controversial lèse-majesté law. The lèse-majesté law, enshrined in section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code, imposes severe penalties for defaming, insulting, or threatening the Thai monarchy. The MFP proposed amending this law and defended [...]

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounced the EU’s call for election verification as a disgrace on Monday after the controversial elections in July. In the press conference, Maduro stated that the EU and its high representative Josep Borrell who he referred to as a disgrace, led Ukraine into a war and remained silent about the massacre in [...]

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and opposition candidate Edmundo González both claimed on Monday that they won the Venezuelan presidential elections. González’s opposition coalition accused the Venezuelan government of electoral fraud, alleging that González obtained over 73 percent of votes. The US expressed doubts about the integrity of the process. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken [...]

The European Commission (EC or Commission) published the 2024 Rule of Law report, reporting a decline in democratic standards in Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia. The Commission’s annual rule of law report assesses the state of the rule of law across EU member states, focusing on areas such as judicial independence, anti-corruption efforts, media pluralism, and [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported in a press release on Monday that as the climate crisis intensifies, some European governments suppress activist groups’ attempts to raise awareness about the issue. The report indicates a trend of increasing repression against climate activists across Europe. This alleged silencing takes various forms, including legal measures, restrictions on protests, [...]

The General Court of the European Union (GC) on Wednesday ruled that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, qualifies as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which subjects the company to stricter regulations aimed at ensuring fair competition and user rights. The Commission assigned ByteDance gatekeeper status in September 2023 under the DMA. Gatekeeper status [...]

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered Former President Maithripala Sirisena to compensate the victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks before August 30, 2024, according to local media. In January 2023, Sirisena was found guilty in a case related to the attacks and was ordered to pay Rs. 100 million as compensation to the [...]