World Legal News

Thai lawmakers voted to amend their constitution on Wednesday, but ultimately rejected the reform many protesters were hoping for. Although the protesters called for monarchical reform, only 212 of 732 parliament members voted in favor of the relevant motion. Although citizens have been protesting since July, the members of parliament delayed their vote until the [...]

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A landmark report into the conduct of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan was released Thursday, concluding that there is “credible information to substantiate 23 incidents of alleged unlawful killing of 39 people by 25 Australian Special Forces personnel, predominantly from the Special Air Service Regiment.” The closed-door inquiry, headed by Major General Justice Paul Brereton, had [...]

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Peru swore in another interim president on Tuesday after Manuel Merino resigned barely a week after entering into office. Fransisco Sagasti is the fourth president to ascend to power in Peru within a period of four years. In 2016, Peru voters elected Pedro Pablo, who went on to resign in 2018 following accusations of corruption. [...]

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The Solomon Islands government announced a plan on Monday to temporarily ban residents from using Facebook. Prime minister Manasseh Sogavare and communication and civil aviation minister Peter Agovaka said the ban intends to curtail “abusive language” and “character assassination” of government officials. In 2019 residents used Facebook to organize protests against Sogavare’s election. Agovaka also cited [...]

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Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Navdeep Bains, introduced a new bill in the Canadian House of Commons Tuesday that will bring about significant privacy reforms to comply with Canada’s Digital Charter, such as increased personal control over digital information and stricter fines. The bill, entitled the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020, comes after Bains [...]

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The lower house of Russia’s Parliament, the Duma, passed the first reading of a draft law granting “guarantees to the President of the Russian Federation who has terminated the exercise of his powers.” These guarantees are to be extended to the former president’s family members as well. According to the Explanatory Note to the draft law, [...]

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The US Department of Justice said Tuesday that it will drop charges against Mexico’s former defense minister and return him to Mexico for possible prosecution. Former Mexican Secretary of National Defense General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, nicknamed “The Godfather,” has been accused of working on behalf of the cartel H-2. He allegedly took bribes to protect [...]

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Iraq’s interior ministry said Monday that the country hanged 21 individuals convicted of terrorism and murder as part of a series of ongoing executions since it defeated the Islamic State (Daesh) in 2017. The executions included two suicide bombers responsible for terrorist attacks on Tal Afar that killed dozens of people, the statement said. No [...]

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The UN High Commission for Refugees warned Tuesday of a growing humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia where armed conflict between the federal government forces and local Tigrayan forces broke out on November 10. Spokesperson Babar Baloch told a press briefing in Geneva that more than 27,000 refugees have fled into neighboring Sudan since the outbreak [...]

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Hungary and Poland vetoed the EU budget and COVID-19 recovery package Monday in objection to a rule of law clause. The leaders of Hungary and Poland took issue with a provision that would tie the funds to respect for democratic norms. Another provision would allow a qualified majority of EU governments to impose sanctions on [...]

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