The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday urged Turkey to end the pre-trial detention of Selahattin Demirtaş, a co-chair of the Kurdish separatist Peoples’ Democratic Party. The Turkish government lifted parliamentary immunity in May 2016, ending special protections for politicians. Demirtaş was arrested on November 4, 2016, and has been in pre-trial detention [...]

The Singapore Parliament passed a bill on Monday amending the Legal Aid and Advice Act to simplify financial determinations for providing legal aid and make it easier for individuals to receive aid. Originally, individuals applying for legal aid had to pass a means threshold based on their disposable income and disposable capital, including an evaluation of [...]

The US Federal Reserve fined French bank Societe Generale USD $81.3 million on Monday after the bank violated US sanctions against Cuba.  According to the Federal Reserve: The Bank lacked adequate transparency, risk management, and legal and compliance review policies and procedures to ensure that activities conducted at offices outside of the United States, primarily though the [...]

Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement on Sunday confirming that the former president Alan García requested political asylum in the Uruguayan embassy just hours after a judge prohibited him from leaving the country. Garcia allegedly accepted bribes from Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company, in exchange for government contracts to build the Metro Line [...]

The Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled Monday that a law that criminalized failure to give notice to a municipality of a gathering of more than 15 people is unconstitutional. The court found that the law violated the guarantee of Section 17 of the Constitution that “veryone has the right, peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Sunday that Egyptian police and National Security Agency (NSA) have arrested more than 40 human rights activists, lawyers and political activists since late October. As many as 80 people may have been arrested, but so far only 40 names were able to be verified by HRW. No arrest warrants [...]

The Venezuelan justice department in-exile sent a “red notice” to INTERPOL requesting the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro and a sentence of at least 18 years, three months in prison. The notice came with annexes including a physical description of Maduro and a statement of charges. The Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Venezuela in exile [...]

Authorities in Tokyo on Monday arrested Carlos Ghosn, chairman of Nissan Motor Co., for alleged financial misconduct related to suspicion of violating a financial law. Ghosn was initially interviewed by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office regarding a whistleblower probe conducted internally by Nissan. The investigation concluded that Ghosn under reported his income by reporting compensation [...]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Saturday that authorities in the Central African Republic (CAR) have surrendered militia leader Alfred Yekatom for prosecution on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yekatom is suspected of crimes committed in connection with an ongoing conflict between a predominantly Muslim coalition of armed groups called the [...]

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, a Cambodian court that receives aid through the UN, convicted Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of genocide, crimes against humanity, and other violations of the Geneva Convention on Friday.  The crimes were committed during Cambodia’s Democratic Kampuchea period from April 1975 to January 1979. The court referred to Nuon, the former Deputy [...]