Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, filed separate motions Wednesday in Manhattan federal court seeking dismissal of the charges against them. Maduro argued that he remains Venezuela’s head of state for immunity purposes, notwithstanding the United States’ refusal to recognize him as the country’s legitimate president. Flores contended that she is [...]

US District Judge Deborah Boardman on Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of President Trump’s dual executive orders (EOs) targeting birthright citizenship, largely on the grounds that the orders violate a prior Supreme Court ruling on the issue. President Trump issued the orders in early August, directed at ending “birth tourism,” about a [...]

The UN on Tuesday released a report detailing how decades of war in Afghanistan have left civilians dealing with lasting psychological, physical and economic harm, which has been compounded by a lack of access to justice, compensation and other forms of redress.  The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) interviewed 195 victims of armed conflict [...]

Amnesty International warned Wednesday that plans by five European Union member-state governments for migrant “return hubs” in Rwanda and Uganda risk creating “cruel black holes for human rights.” The statement came two days before the governments are to meet to review progress on the plans. Cmmenting on the human rights risks that these migrant “return hubs” [...]

Angolans who fled prolonged drought into Namibia face arrest, detention, denial of health care, and deportation because Namibian law gives them no route to legal status, Amnesty International said in a report Wednesday. The report documents the consequences of recurrent droughts in Angola and the impacts of drought-induced displacement to Namibia on Angolan women and [...]

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called for the Chilean National Congress to reject a proposed package of constitutional amendments addressing “national security” questions being pushed by President José Antonio Kast. HRW charged that the amendments, supposedly aimed at fighting organized crime, would undermine due process and human rights protections. Multiple committees in both houses of [...]

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on Monday stated that countries have a legal obligation to consider comprehensive reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and the continuing harm caused by the legacy of racialized chattel slavery. In a general recommendation, the Committee said that the historical harms associated with the trafficking [...]

Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned the Belarusian authorities following reports of persecution, intimidation and systematic targeting of students and affiliates of the European Humanities University (EHU), actions which the organization said constitute violations of the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. In commenting on the long-term implications of the imposition of such measures [...]

Venezuela’s National Assembly on Tuesday unanimously approved a reform to the Organic Law of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice expanding the Judicial Nominations Committee from 21 to 23 members and granting civil society organizations a majority of seats, in what negotiators described as a concrete step toward rebuilding judicial independence following decades of political control over [...]

The nation of Vanuatu on Monday filed an application with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against France, requesting that the court affirm its sovereignty over disputed islands in the South Pacific region and establish new boundaries between Vanuatu and the French territory of New Caledonia. Vanuatu is a cluster of roughly 80 islands with 300,000 [...]